Voices of the Lost Realm Book I: The Tournament
by Chichiro Ketsueki
Summary: When a demoness named Kagura suddenly begins causing havoc across the spirit world and threatens to move to the living world, Hiei and Kurama compete in her demon tournament, and Hiei's worst nightmare is realized in order to help them: a new partner.
1. The Task is Introduced and Meet Chichiro

**Authoress's Note**:This is a rewriting of one of my older fan fictions, in my updated style. It is written starting where the last episodes of YuYu Hakusho ended, and even though Kagura from Inuyasha is the villainess in this first book, it's not really a cross-over. I just couldn't seem to think up my own 'bad guys' when I first wrote my fanfictions, but I'm not going to change Kagura's role 'cause I find that she has a certain 'charm'. Yes, there will be pairings in this series. Also, the first couple of chapters, I admit, are a bit shakier than the later ones of the series; I intend to go back and revise those one of these days. And finally, The first few paragraphs of this chapter are slightly tedious; excuse those, I simply wanted to explain what had happened to make things the way they are for the fiction.

**Claimer**: Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer**: Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 1—The Task is Introduced, and Meet Chichiro

--

With Yusuke's decision of resignation, the break up of the "Ghost fighter" team seemed finalized. Kurama had chosen to lead a human life and leave his past behind him; Hiei had decided to remain in Makai with Mukuro; Kuwabara had chosen to focus all of his attention on schooling and the human world; and the former spirit detective, Yusuke Urameshi, having effectively forced Makai into a peaceful era by giving up his kingship and instigating the Demon World Tournament, had returned to the human world to be with Keiko. All ends were tied and all choices seemed final.

It all began with Kurama.

Restless in his human existence but not willing to entirely involve himself with the world of demons again, he had once more offered his aid to Koenma, taking small jobs first and then agreeing to full-blown missions. Yusuke, though under threat if Keiko's wrath, had followed this example and also taken an odd job here and there to ensure that human world would remain safe from all demonic mischief. Even Kuwabara, so set on disregarding all supernatural happenings that had taken place in his teenage years, had every once in a long while decided to offer his aid to Kurama and Yusuke.

Hiei had been the last to relent.

After the Demon World Tournament's close, Hiei had worked under Mukuro in the patrol for several years. If he were to be asked how many, he could probably tell you, but it would be doubtful that he'd care to—ten would be a fair estimate. A few years after he began her service, Koenma offered him a position on the Spirit Detective team once again, despite the fact that Yusuke was no longer Spirit Detective. He declined. But when Koenma asked again five or so years afterward, after Hiei had begun to become bored with Mukuro's jobs for him, he agreed.

He worked for two years for Koenma, taking four missions alongside Kurama, sometimes working alone (Which he preferred, but he never really had a say in it.).

Yusuke, Kuwabara, and the others were in a separate 'group' of spirit detectives, and they rarely worked together. Yusuke and Kuwabara had been admittedly slow to get used to a normal human life, thus their transition back into offering occasional help had not been rough. Kurama, on the other hand, had never really planned on leaving the life behind entirely as Yusuke and Kuwabara had been attempting to. True, he didn't plan on ever again becoming Yoko, but that did not mean he was ready to be human.

At the end of his fourth solo assignment, which was stopping an amateur demon who was attempting to take advantage of the lack of the Kekkei and was simple to stop, Hiei was immediately given another.

…But first, he had to wake up Kurama. Which proved to be more difficult than it would have seemed.

The redhead was snoring. Quite annoyingly, in fact. "Get _up_, Kurama," was all the merciless demon growled, and waited for the opportunity when Kurama's emerald eyes cracked open the slightest bit to hit him quite hard on the side of his face, knowing from experience that if he simply told the fox to get up, it would prove a wasted effort.

Kurama cursed as soon as Hiei's fist made contact, and sat up quickly, just as the fire demon had intended. "What was _that_ for?"

"Hn."

The kitsune muttered Hiei's name as though it were a profanity and pulled himself out of the bed. "Why did you wake me?" he asked, pulling a baggy white button-up shirt onto his arms, and putting the circular four-holed buttons through the slits on the opposite side of his shirt, then tugging on a pair of jeans.

"Koenma has another job for us."

Kurama raised a single red eyebrow as he slipped a sock on. "And you had to hit me instead of just telling me?"

"You take too long," the black-haired youkai replied simply.

Kurama sighed and brushed his hair quickly, before following Hiei through the portal that was open in plain sight in middle of his room.

"About time!" Koenma growled when they arrived. He was in his child-form, which was becoming rarer and rarer. He usually saved it for when he was angry and couldn't hold his teenage form very well, which made it very hard to take him seriously.

"Apologies. Hiei didn't wake me."

The black-haired youkai glared at Kurama. "Well, I did, actually. Just not at a convenient time for the toddler-prince."

Koenma glared daggers at Hiei as Kurama muttered, "No, you _hit_ me. It was your fist that woke me."

"I _don't care_," Koenma seethed. The two demons in front of him gave challenges to one another with their eyes a single last time before they turned to the prince of the Spirit World.

"As you know," he began, "a demoness has been wreaking havoc across Reikai, as well as Makai. It has been said in the rumors around our world that she's soon going to be spreading to the living world."

Hiei shrugged when Koenma paused and said nothing more. He resisted the urge to deny that this was his world, as the prince had inferred, and said bluntly, "And?"

"Are you asking us to stop her?" Kurama asked, his eyes showing that he was flattered for such a large job. "I would have thought you'd leave something like that to Yusuke."

"He's already on a mission," Koenma responded, "and it's bigger than this." He shook his head as if to bring himself back to the current topic. "But that's not important right now. Yes, I do want you to stop her. But you'll have a partner…one of my newer spirit detectives. She was a thief and an assassin for a few hundred years like Hiei was, so I have confidence in her abilities."

As soon as the word 'partner' passed through Koenma's lips, Hiei seemed offended beyond listening, so he shut his ears until the prince stopped talking. "Are you inferring that we need help?"

"No," Koenma replied in a bored tone, "I'm _saying_ you need it."

Hiei curled his lip at the toddler, and Kurama would've considered betting on Hiei killing the prince, but the youkai did no such thing.

"…Hn."

"Very well," Kurama said, "but how do you suppose we go about this?"

"First off, you have to meet Chichiro," Koenma responded immediately, as if knowing Kurama's question ahead of time. "And she doesn't know what the mission is yet, so I'll leave it to you to explain it. However, how you 'go about this' is that you will enter in the demoness's tournament."

"What does she expect from this tournament?" Kurama asked, wondering why a strong demoness like her would bother making a tournament when she could beat most likely any opponent who entered. "What is she offering the winners?"

"If there are winners," Koenma told them both, inferring fights to the death, which was to be expected. It was common in demon world tournaments for the last few winners to kill each other or receive fatal wounds before they could even claim their prizes. "Her 'motivation' is that she wants to prove she can beat any demon in spirit world. And the 'prize' is the same for the contestants—the chance to battle and possibly win against her. No one knows her name, but I'm betting on Kagura."

"The wind demoness?" Kurama murmured. She had disappeared many years ago, but her skills were legendary.

"Yes. I believe she's come out from hiding."

"Hn."

"Good to know you're still alive, Hiei," Koenma muttered mildly, shaking his head.

The youkai 'hn'ed again, and walked back through the portal. Koenma growled and muttered something incoherent, and Kurama turned back to him. "So, you said we're to meet Chichiro tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Here?"

"Well, here if she remembers."

Kurama perked a brow at the comment.

"She's almost like a slightly more serious version of Botan. So she might take a while to get here, or she could go to your house…" He trailed off before he could begin listing off other ideas, and when he shuddered, Kurama assumed he was still considering Chichiro's other possible mess-ups.

"What time should we come?"

"As early as you can. I wouldn't worry about being late, but don't make it in the afternoon or after."

Kurama grinned lightly and shook his head. "I'll be sure to tell Hiei that." As he walked toward the portal, he heard Koenma start talking to Botan on his large TV screen that somehow knew everything, about Chichiro. "She's an airhead sometimes, Botan—just be sure to remind her."

Kurama grinned, near-dreading. He wasn't sure if he was ready to work with another airhead, after he'd finally escaped the previous team save for visits.

--

"About time!"

Two hours after Kurama and Hiei arrived at Koenma's office, a third demon came through the portal from Kurama's house, earning the same greeting from the prince that the other two had received the previous day.

"Well, _excuse me_, Lord Koenma," snarled a sarcastic female voice. 'Lord Koenma' was said without any authenticity. "Since you didn't tell me where to find one of your handy portals, I had to track down my _partners'_ house, and use _their_ portal." 'partners'' was spoken with a venom that hinted that she didn't fancy the idea any more than Hiei.

Kurama turned around to examine the tall female demon that met his eyes. She had raven hair that went to her waist, blue fox ears poking through said hair, two blue fox tails, and a red bandanna across her forehead that was tied behind her head; the long strings in the back were nearly the length of her hair. She bore black zigzag demon marks beneath her eyes (Which were green and had cat-slit pupils.), on the outside, near the edge of her face, and she wore a red tube top, and a tight, halfway-to-her-knees black skirt with a red sash belt. She had tall black mesh thigh-stockings that were covered knee-down by large black boots, and her hands were encased in black gloves that went to just past her elbows, which had holes in the tips of her fingers so her long black claws could come through.

Her voice didn't sound and she didn't look at all air-headed, and she was actually quite attractive.

Hiei gave her a brief once-over, unimpressed and no doubt plotting early the snide comments, hints and insults he could make from the way she dressed.

"You're supposed to be able to find or open your _own_ portal," Koenma snapped.

She shrugged. "Oops," she muttered with painfully-apparent and intended fake innocence.

Koenma glared at her for a short while, before turning to Kurama. "This is Chichiro. And unfortunately, her attitude is the same, if not worse, than Hiei's."

"Hn," came a low mutter from the demoness next to the portal. "Hiei," she mumbled slowly, quoting the name Koenma had used. She walked over to the small demon she'd just named, bending down slightly with a quizzical look. "Are you Hiei or Kurama?"

A 'hn' that matched hers was his response, and she shrugged.

"Fair enough."

"He's Hiei," Kurama told her, walking over and offering his hand. "And I'm Kurama."

Chichiro smiled at him, revealing pearly teeth and sharp demon fangs as she took his hand and gave it a strong shake. "Good to meet you."

Kurama smiled back at her, and Hiei rolled his eyes, walking back out the portal again without waiting for either of them.

Chichiro didn't seem to mind. "So…you're supposed to explain this whole thing to me. And…where are we going to talk?"

Before Kurama could reply, Koenma growled, "Not here," impatiently as he began to dig through a large pile of papers on his desk.

Chichiro took Kurama's left wrist and tugged him through the portal without even responding to the prince of the Spirit world.

At the other side of the gateway between the worlds, Chichiro studied Kurama's room further. She hadn't been given time, and had apparently been curious. "So," she began, turning to Kurama and entirely ignoring Hiei, who was sitting on the window sill ignoring her as well, if only a bit more coldly, "how exactly did you manage this nifty portal in your room? It's pretty spiffy."

"'Nifty'? 'Spiffy'?" Hiei mocked. "Well, I can see you're the mature one of the bunch with those large words."

"Yeah, and I can see you're the most defective, at least in the category of growth, of the group, seeing as how you reach my knees," Chichiro replied without even looking at him.

Hiei twitched, and Kurama sighed. "Koenma arranged it," he told Chichiro. "I wish I could summon portals, but I can't, at least not well enough to hold it until we came back."

"Mmm." Chichiro blinked at the various awards hung in his room. "Like to brag, much?" Chichiro commented, not insulting at all, just seeming to think he was narcissistic.

Kurama waved his arms quickly. "No, no, I didn't put those there. My mother did."

Chichiro glanced at him, sitting on his bed. As she spoke, there was a guarded look in her eyes. "'Mother'?"

"Yes. My human mother." As he explained, Hiei went out the window and on to the roof, probably to torture small birds or squirrels. He'd heard the story enough times. But Kurama didn't go into depth about it, and Chichiro didn't ask anything further.

"So, um," Chichiro began again, breaking the seconds-long silence, "when are we going to look for the demoness?"

"Well," Kurama started to reply, and then a voice from the tree explained in a harsher way.

"We don't look for her, you fool, we just simply—"

"I think it's clear that you're the fool, already insulting me before knowing me," Chichiro snapped back, with more force than she'd had yet. She turned to Kurama and smiled, as if Hiei had never spoken. Speaking of, the demon was glaring steely at Chichiro, no doubt plotting some slow and painful death. "As you were saying?"

Kurama, frankly, was amazed that Hiei hadn't attacked Chichiro yet. But he continued to explain anyway. "We have to enter her demon tournament," he told her, "and defeat the teams there to get to battle her. And you can obviously assume from there."

"Hn." Chichiro flopped down onto the mattress backward, her torso on it, but past her knees her legs were hanging over the bed. "So, then, when do we leave for the tournament?"

Kurama shrugged. "Koenma will tell us. He seemed a bit stressed out today."

"You think?" Chichiro replied sarcastically. Kurama watched her for a moment, as she crossed one leg over the other and flipped her foot up and down in a bored fashion. _She doesn't seem like an 'air-head' to me_, Kurama noted again, and then, after feeling Hiei's criticizing eyes on the back of his head, looked away from Chichiro.

"What city are we in anyway?" Chichiro asked.

_I spoke too soon_, Kurama mused with a mildly-amused smile, before saying, "You found your way here and you don't know?"

Chichiro glared at him as if he were the most incompetent creature alive. "What, do you think I stopped and asked a human for directions?" Her voice changed drastically, and she said in a mocking, higher-pitched, matter-of-fact voice, "'So, yeah, I'm a demoness and I kind of need to find my way to the spirit world; can you tell me where the nearest portal is?'" Flatly, she continued, "Oh, yeah, I'm sure _that_ would go over well."

Kurama chuckled. "That's true. We're in Tokyo."

"How cliché," Chichiro groaned, closing her eyes and switching her legs around, so her other leg was on top. "Demons in Tokyo fighting to protect the living world. Sounds like an anime."

"You know about anime?" Kurama commented, surprised. He hadn't taken her as a demoness who would live in or know much of the human world.

"Only because one of my other spirit detective friends is obsessed with it."

"Ah." Kurama had noted the random increase in spirit detective numbers lately, and supposed Koenma was getting as paranoid as his father as he got older.

Chichiro blinked over at the portal. "Um…why is that still open?"

"Good question," Kurama answered, looking at it as well.

As if it realized it was being talked about, the portal closed.

Chichiro smirked. "Let me guess…the midget prince is watching us from his handy stalker screen?"

Kurama ginned, but didn't answer. He could tell already that he was going to like her a lot.

Hiei, on the other hand, wasn't attempting to start conversation, and it seemed that he was no longer even trying to ignore them—it came natural.

As the room went quiet for an excess of thirty seconds, Chichiro growled and sat up. "You got any food around here?"

Hiei, finally listening to the conversation, commented as well, branching off of Chichiro's question. "You still have sweet snow?"

"Yes, and of course," Kurama replied, looking at each demon in turn as he answered their questions. Barely after the word 'course' had passed through Kurama's lips, the demon outside his room was gone. "Hope he used the front door, in case mother's home," Kurama muttered.

Chichiro didn't hear or didn't care about the last comment, as she said, "'Sweet snow'?"

"Ice cream." And then, after a blank stare from the demoness, "Here, I'll show you."

Downstairs, Kurama handed Chichiro a bowl of chocolate ice cream.

She studied it a moment and poked it with her spoon. "What's it made out of?"

Kurama shrugged. "Frozen cream, sugar, and the like."

"Hn." Chichiro sniffed it, then took a bite. She stopped chewing near immediately, and swallowed it, staring at Kurama. For a moment Kurama was seriously considering running, from the look she gave him, and then her eyes randomly acquired a strange, sparkly gleam and a grin brightened her face. "This is…_SO WONDERFUL!"_

Kurama grinned as well, though he thought, _Well, damn. Hope she doesn't like it as much as Hiei…it costs enough money to get _him_ sweet snow_ every day. _I don't need to go off and buy Chichiro a supply as well._

Interrupting his thoughts, Chichiro stuck the bowl out in front of her, empty, the spoon still in her mouth and held loosely at the end by two fingers. "…More?" she asked innocently, looking at Kurama with unblinking eyes.

Kurama sweat-dropped. Yes, this was definitely going to cost more.


	2. Arrival

**Claimer**: Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer**: Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 2—Arrival, and the First Fight of the Tournament

--

"Oh, _honestly_, Kurama! _Tomorrow_?!"

Kurama grinned sheepishly at Chichiro. "Like I told you before, we had just as little notice."

The demoness rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know." Koenma had contacted Kurama that morning, the day after Chichiro arrived, to tell them that the tournament was beginning the next day. "Why'd he call you and not me?"

Kurama stared at her, then sighed. "Because he doesn't have any way to contact you."

Chichiro snorted, and muttered something that sounded a bit like, 'That's what _you_ say…', but it was incoherent. "Well," she responded with intended optimism that wasn't really supported by her tone, "at least we don't have to hang around the human world for long."

Hiei hadn't done much in the way of speaking since the previous day; Kurama supposed he was still sore about Chichiro insulting him. After all, Yusuke and Kuwabara were one thing—they insulted everyone, and their opinion never really meant anything to him. Not to say Chichiro's did either, but he hadn't _won_ the argument.

Kurama snickered quietly at the thought, and Chichiro blinked at him. "What the hell's so funny?"

Kurama stifled his chuckling and shook his head. "Nothing."

Chichiro perked a brow, but said nothing further.

--

Kurama opened his eyes, shading them from an intense light that had randomly appeared in his room. He shook himself out of sleep, and waited for his eyes to register before he tried to make out the source of the light.

He started, noticing a bit late that Chichiro was standing next to his bed. She looked down at him. "What, are you just going to sit there?"

Kurama groaned and sat up. "What time is it?"

"Here? Uhm, roughly three or four in the morning, I'm guessing. But by tournament time it's about ten, so we'd better go."

Kurama finally gathered that the light was a portal. He studied it a moment before his eyes could actually register what was there—it was daylight wherever it was; the issue of 'where' was quickly settled when he saw a huge arena. "Damn," he muttered. "Koenma already calling?"

"'Course," was the response. Chichiro extended an arm to help him up. He took her wrist, helping himself to stand, and he pulled on a shirt (Simply for the fact that Chichiro was there, he'd slept in pants.).

By that time, Hiei had joined them and was standing in front of the opposite side of the bed, near the portal. "Hn. You two going to stand there chatting, or are we going to go?"

Kurama grinned at him. "Yes, Hiei, we're going."

Chichiro followed Hiei through the portal, and she was followed by Kurama, still pulling on his shoes and jacket.

It was fairly brisk outside the tournament. Kurama was confused a moment, before recalling that seasons were different in the demon world, not only time.

Chichiro was immediately in a perky mood. She liked fall, Kurama assumed. He felt like it was a normal school day, and he was late, or something to the effect; he didn't feel like he should be preparing for a tournament. Rather, he felt like he should be preparing coffee. Yawning, he stretched and looked at the various demons surrounding them in the crowd outside the arena, before his eyes locked on Koenma. The toddler prince was waiting in his teenage form outside of a set of doors off to the side of the main entryway, looking impatient as usual.

"You take _so long_!" ranted the prince when Kurama joined them; Hiei and Chichiro had gotten there before him.

"Sorry, Lord Koenma," Kurama mumbled quietly and without much more authenticity than when Chichiro had used the title last, yawning again. He really needed coffee.

Chichiro, following his gesture simply out of impulse, stretched and grinned, looking around. Kurama could tell, by the way she looked at the other demons alone, that she was an outgoing demoness and wanted badly to go and socialize.

A group of male demons whooped at her and Chichiro, missing the point and misunderstanding their intent, simply grinned and waved.

Kurama sweat-dropped. He'd gathered that she was clueless about the human world, but the demon world as well? Where exactly was she from, anyway?

Koenma, pissed as always, broke his thoughts. "Kurama, snap out of it," he growled; then, after receiving no response, "Kurama, damn it we have a tournament to win!"

Kurama glared briefly at the prince, then smiled lightly, sheepishly. "Yes, I know."

Koenma rolled his eyes, and turned to follow Hiei and Chichiro, who'd long since entered the door Koenma had been waiting at. It led down a hallway with dull, concrete floors and concrete walls, and led only to equally as dull concrete rooms with simple beds; a single window was above each bed, without a screen or glass. Each room gave the impression of a jail cell with an easy escape.

Kurama looked less-than-thrilled at his own room. "Well, I can see you managed luxury for us, Lord Koenma," he sighed sarcastically.

"If you don't quit it, that 'luxury' will be for Hiei and Chichiro only, and you can sleep out in the woods," Koenma snapped back.

Kurama shrugged. "It would probably be better than here." Koenma narrowed his eyes at him irritably, and Kurama nodded submissively. "…Yes, I know. I'm done."

"Good," was the reply, "because you're all fighting soon."

"There won't be a break to settle in? We're fighting today, when we've only just gotten here?"

Koenma blinked at him incredulously. "What, did you actually expect a break?"

Kurama mumbled something and went into his room, flopping down on his uncomfortable, stiff bed. "Call me when it is our time to fight, will you?" he replied finally, closing his eyes.

Chichiro looked at her room, equally as unenthusiastic as Kurama toward it, but she finally just walked in and kneeled on the bed, looking out the window, which seemed to be too high up. She had a view (if it could even be complimented by that word) of the line of demons waiting to get in for seats, and nothing more. She sighed, turning around and looking at the door-lacking entryway to her room, watching as Hiei passed. He was no doubt heading to his room. Chichiro sat on her bed, swinging her legs over the side, then bent to look under her bed, which contained nothing but large clumps of dust that made her cough.

Hiei glared at his room, unimpressed as with everything, then continued walking down the hallway without entering it. At the end of the long walkway was the entrance to the arena, which looked much more promising than the rooms. It was larger than the other battling areas he'd been in, though not by much. The stone ring was not limited to the center, with a wide rim of out-of-bounds area, though. It made up near the entire grounds. Less room for being disqualified for ring-outs.

The seats were lined with demons already, and many (Well, most, actually) were shouting for the fighting to begin. Hiei glanced up at the scoreboard to see two unknown team names, and he growled mildly to himself. _Hn. Of course we have to wait. It's just my luck._ He turned back to his room, flickering from view and reappearing on his bed, leaning against the wall.

"Now what?" Hiei heard Chichiro's voice ask from the hallway, and he looked up, though he couldn't see her.

"You wait," was Koenma's flat reply somewhere down the hall.

Hiei 'Hn'ed, and weaved his fingers together behind his head.

"Are you kidding me?" Chichiro's voice called, indignant. Then, after a pause. "…Koenma? …Lord Koenma? AUGH! Damn it, Prince, answer me!"

Hiei heard Chichiro run after Koenma, and rolled his eyes, knowing she didn't really care what he had to say. She was just killing time.

--

"We're on. Get up, Kurama."

The redhead groaned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sitting up.

"Hurry up!"

Kurama growled, yawning, stretching, and glaring at Koenma. Or, he would have, had the prince been in his teen form. But he was in his toddler form again, and Kurama had to look down. By that time he was amused enough not to have to glare. "Do I have to?" Kurama asked in a jokingly pathetic voice.

Koenma twitched. "Do I have to answer that?"

"Technically you did," Chichiro commented from the doorway, where she was leaning against the frame, her arms crossed.

Kurama glanced at her, then responded to the prince as if she hadn't spoken. "Actually, I wish you wouldn't." He swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood, bending backward and cracking his back and shoulder blades.

"Are you ready yet?" growled Hiei's impatient voice. He was standing next to Chichiro in the doorway. "I don't know about all of you, but standing around Kurama's room doesn't exactly equal winning the tournament to me."

Chichiro snickered, and Hiei gave her a dangerous look sideways without comment, and she quieted.

"Yes, yes, we're coming," muttered Kurama, and when no one but the demon he was talking to moved, he twitched. "Well, come on!" He stood, then headed past Koenma, following Hiei down the hallway.

At the doorway into the arena, they all stopped.

"What are you all waiting for?" Hiei growled, standing in the doorway a few feet ahead of them.

"What are _you_ waiting for?" responded Chichiro snidely, and walked past him.

Hiei curled his lip and scowled after her. "Hn." And then he followed, hands in his pockets.

"Coming, Lord Koenma?" Kurama asked.

"No, I think I'll just watch from here."

Kurama shrugged and went to join Hiei and Chichiro. When he arrived, they were already fighting, though verbally and only against one another.

"You _dare_ insult me, insolent woman?!"

"What do you think I just did, moron?" she spat back at the seething Hiei.

"Imbecile! Do you have any idea of my power?"

"Is that a challenge?"

"Any time!" Hiei's hand flashed to the hilt of his katana, but Kurama put his hand over it to stop the fire youkai, shaking his head.

"Don't. Save your energy for the real fight, won't you?"

Hiei glared momentarily at Kurama, but when the fox released his hand Hiei slid his sword back into the hilt. "Hn."

Chichiro glared coldly at Hiei, then her eyes switched to Kurama.

"What were you two going on about, anyway?" he asked.

"Who's fighting first," Chichiro explained.

Kurama shook his head. "I'm not entirely sure how you got from there to insults, but I think that's better left untold. Anyway, I figured I should take the first fight."

"You mean you and I," corrected Hiei. "This isn't one of those moronic human-based tournaments like the ones we've been in before. We fight in pairs."

"Fine, then. You and I, Hiei."

Chichiro twitched. "And what am I, chopped liver?"

"No doubt you'd resemble it if you tried to fight, with that pitiful energy," Hiei replied with a sideways glance. (Of course, in all actuality, Chichiro's demonic power was near, if not at, Hiei's level. He was simply looking for a way to insult her.)

"Pardon?" Chichiro's voice was dangerously calm and over-laid with a fox-like growl.

"Quit it, both of you." Kurama turned to Chichiro. "Sorry, I just figured it was best to start off the tournament with the pair who has fought together before."

Chichiro glared at him, and Kurama was expecting pain, but none came. "Hn. Fine. That makes sense—make the 'pair whose fought together' go in the easy round. Whoo, that's too logical for me," Chichiro snarled with sarcasm dripping off her every word.

"Of course it is," cut in Hiei's snide voice. "I think we've already gathered that _everything_ is too logical for a weak-minded fool like you."

"Damn it!" Kurama cried before Chichiro could respond. "I told you both to leave it, and I was being serious. We have a tournament to fight."

"Hn. Fine. I'll be with Koenma." Chichiro turned and walked away, her tails swishing behind her like an angry cat's.

"Well, glad that's over," Kurama mumbled, then turned to face the ring. "So, Hiei, since you seem to know so much—are there multiple fights per round?"

"No, only a single one. Most teams only have two fighters; we're one of the odd few with three." He seemed none-too-thrilled with admitting it.

"Right, then. Let's go."

Hiei was already in the ring before Kurama could finish his second sentence. Kurama leapt up to stand next to him, and cast a glance across the ring to size up their opponents.

Height-wise, the teams seemed to be fairly evenly matched. There was a short lightning demoness who was more height-challenged than Hiei, however amazing that was, and a taller male demon whose height rivaled even that of Yoko. Kurama noted that the male demon had no scent that defined his breed.

"He's a wind demon, Kurama," Hiei told him before Kurama could question it aloud, in a voice that made it sound as though it had been obvious. Kurama's glance alone asked how he knew. "I can sense it, you fool."

Kurama shrugged, but he noticed that Hiei hadn't turned to look at him when he spoke. He glanced over at the shorter fire demon, but Hiei was glaring at the wind demon, and Kurama could see that he'd clearly chosen his opponent. The fox went over to stand in front of the demoness.

From nowhere, a huge voice that echoed across the entire stadium commenced the round with a thunderous, "BEGIN!"

Kurama didn't have time to look for its source, as the demoness attacked immediately. A lighting ball had been gathered in her hand; before Kurama could even register that her arm had thrust it away from her, the energy was hurtling toward him. He narrowly dodged it, amazed at her speed. The ball exploded into an electric fog behind him, and when it cleared, a large dent had been added to the arena wall.

Hiei drew his sword and set it out in front of him, waiting for his opponent to make the first move. The other demon gladly obliged, drawing a sword with a hilt quite like the one Kuwabara used for his spirit sword in the dark tournament's final few rounds. Demon wind curled around it angrily as he leapt at Hiei, weapon raised.

Hiei blocked with his own katana, thrusting the demon backward and immediately following up the attempt with one of his own. The demon narrowly dodged a severe injury, but he still had earned a raw wound on his left shoulder where his flesh has been sliced off like the katana had been a hot knife through butter.

The wind demon winced, then leapt for Hiei again. Hiei, already bored with the fight, stepped out of his way, only to reappear behind him.

His opponent whipped around and sprang again, his sword slicing through only air. He growled, then stopped for a moment, turning his fiery gaze upon Hiei. "You're fast."

"Hn."

"But not fast enough!" He launched himself once again at the shorter fire demon, and when Hiei flickered from view, he slashed sideways, only to meet with Hiei's sword, which knocked the demon's own from his hands and to the floor.

"But…how?!" spluttered the demon.

"Hn." Which would become the last thing that demon heard for quite a while.

Hiei slid his katana down his shirt, wiping the blood off, and turned to see how Kurama was faring as he sheathed it.

At the moment, Kurama was dodging another one of the demoness's lightning balls, but with a singular crack of his whip the demoness fell. And didn't return to her feet.

Chichiro met them halfway to the entrance to the hallway as they were heading back. "That was amazing!"

"Hn. I didn't even have to transform," muttered Hiei scornfully.

"But you did it so fast!" Chichiro continued, actually speaking to Hiei decently.

Hiei snorted. "Which is exactly why we're the ones who fought and not you," the short fire youkai replied.

Chichiro glared at him, then seemed to decide spontaneously that it wasn't worth it to retaliate, turning to Kurama. "So. What now?"

"We wait for our next turn, I suppose," he responded with a shrug. "I'm sure it wouldn't be that boring to watch other battles."

Chichiro nodded, leaning against the wall next to Kurama as Hiei 'hn'ed.


	3. Fights and Fillers

**Authoress's Note**: M'kay, contrary to what will become popular belief in the next few chapters, there will be _no_ romance between Kurama and Chichiro. It's entirely one-sided. There will be another pairing, which will become obvious soon enough. Don't like OC pairings? Don't read any further. Simple as that. X3

**Claimer**: Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer**: Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 3: Fights and Fillers

--

Chichiro sighed, veering her eyes across the wide, dull expanse of her room. She laid back, stretching her arms behind her head and crossing one leg over her other. _I can already see this tournament is going to be_ so _fun_, she thought with extreme sarcasm.

"Hungry?"

Chichiro lifted her eyes to Kurama, who was holding a bowl of ramen out toward her. She grinned and enthusiastically agreed, "Hell yes!" She took it from him after thanking him, then blinked at it after lowering her nose close to it to take in its scent. "What is it?"

Kurama was taken aback. "You don't even know what _ramen_ is?"

"I know what noodles are, but this smells different."

Kurama understood then: with Chichiro's heightened senses, she could smell the preservatives and other human chemicals in the food. She just hadn't noticed them in the case of the ice cream because she'd never had it before and didn't know what to compare it to.

"It's the same thing; it just might taste a bit different." _The joys of microwavable ramen_, Kurama thought with a smirk. He'd had Koenma heat them, as apparently Koenma's room was nicer than theirs and large enough to store appliances. _What a prince of the spirit world would want with a microwave is beyond me_.

Chichiro shrugged, taking Kurama's spare chopsticks.

As she slurped the last bite some time later, Chichiro blinked up at Kurama. "So—did you offer Hiei any?"

Kurama wondered why she'd even care, but he supposed she was just curious. "Yes, but naturally he didn't want anything."

Chichiro grinned, then looked down at her empty bowl, and it seemed that something had occurred to her. "Say, where exactly did you heat this?"

"Koenma has a microwave." Then, before she could ask, "It's just a human invention that cooks faster than a fire."

"Right." Chichiro set the bowl on the ground, laying the chopsticks on the rim before she leaned back up. "Why don't we have these?"

Kurama shrugged. "Koenma has a 'suite'," he replied with sarcasm that rivaled Chichiro's. "He was just too cheap to get us all one as well."

"Then why don't we raid his room?"

Kurama grinned; yes, he had definitely been right about liking Chichiro. "That's fairly devious to consider, don't you think?"

Chichiro grinned back at him, her fangs showing. "Seeing as how you haven't said 'no' yet, I'd say you were considering it as well. So you tell me, is it devious?"

Kurama laughed. "Alright, then, let's."

Just as they arrived outside Chichiro's room, Koenma's voice stopped them. "Where are you two going?"

They both stiffened, turning around. "Outside," Chichiro and Kurama replied at the same time, and they exchanged mildly nervous glances.

"Well, cancel those plans," Koenma told them. "We have a meeting with the famous-but-nameless demoness."

Kurama's eyes widened. "Where did she plan this meeting?"

"Don't get excited, she's just contacting us on my communicator, that's all."

Kurama blinked. "Communication mirror?"

"No, you moron! Of course not!" Koenma coughed once before continuing, calmer. "The 'Giant all-knowing TV (of DOOM!)', as Chichiro has dubbed it."

Chichiro grinned.

Kurama nodded. "Ah. That one." He paused. "Wait…how exactly did you fit that into your room?"

"Well, it isn't the same exact one, obviously. After all, I only plan to stay for the first few fights, not the entire tournament." He shook his head. "That would just be ridiculous." ("Gee," Chichiro commented mildly, "glad you're so supportive, Lord Koenma.") "Anyway, why are we standing around? I don't have to explain, I'll just show you."

"And Hiei?" Kurama asked.

"He's already at my room."

After a short walk around the outside of the arena, they turned into another hallway and entered a rather tall door (Yes, it seemed Koenma's room, at least, had a door, unlike everyone else's) into a larger room.

…A very _nice_ larger room. Which was adorned with an equally as nice bed, actual paint on the walls (unlike the concrete walls provided for his team) and a second room sectioned off as a makeshift kitchen with appliances.

The two fighters trailing behind the prince stared in silence, then Chichiro growled. "Well, great room you have here, Koenma." She glared at the prince dangerously, earning a nervous glance back. "Say, why didn't you get _us_ rooms like this? Not like _you_ have anything to worry about cost-wise, bein' the prince of the spirit world and all."

Koenma shrugged. "Well…they didn't have enough rooms available," he replied lamely, then covered by saying, "Now both of you come with me. Don't want to be late—"

"—And piss her off," finished Chichiro flatly, then nodded and followed him over to the couch in front of the TV. Kurama sat down next to Hiei (A very _bored_-looking Hiei.), while Chichiro stood, leaning her hip against the upper part of the couch on Kurama's side, crossing her arms.

The screen blinked once, flickering into white, then black, and it lightened just slightly, which seemed to signal that the demoness was there. Chichiro blinked at the empty screen, then decided it was probably only because since the demoness was still nameless to everyone that she didn't want her identity known.

When no sound came, Chichiro blinked, but then one of her large fox ears twitched and swiveled forward. "Hey, Koenma?"

"What?" came the impatient reply.

"Can you turn it up?"

"There's nothing on," he replied flatly. "Wait."

"No, there is," came Chichiro's short, impatient response. "But all of you have too inferior of ears to hear it."

Koenma glanced at her, then at Kurama. The fox-in-disguise shrugged, and Hiei 'hn'ed without comment. Koenma sighed. "Alright, then." He turned it up until the screen made a funny buzzing noise, but faintly one could hear a woman's voice, soft, seducing, and mocking.

"I have to admit, your team is the only one I actually care to fight." By the sound of her voice, she had started speaking before they could hear it. "The only reason I made this tournament rather than just fighting you out right was to make sure it was worth it; after all, if your team of demons could be beat by just any other demon world thugs, it wouldn't be worth my time to fight you. It'd actually be quite useless."

Chichiro quirked a brow. _What does this have to do with anything?_ she wondered.

"In any case, I want you all to show your abilities. But be sure not to reveal them all so anyone could predict your moves—it'd make it boring for me. If you prove to be as inferior as the others in this tournament, I will decline you the right to fight me directly, and I will make my pass at conquering the human world immediately after."

_So_, Hiei thought, _she finally makes her point. I suppose she wants me to waste the flames of the underworld on these unworthy demons, just so she can see it?_

"If your pitiful minds can comprehend what I've said, then I assume you will not disappoint me. If you do so, I assure you—you will regret it." She cackled lightly, which, in her current voice, seemed almost like a light-hearted whisper of a laugh. "But not for long, of course." She paused. "I'm sorry, I'm carrying on, aren't I? Don't think this is another one of your traditional 'missions'. It would make me sore to be put in the same class as your Dark Tournament, or Sensui and all of his fools. Even Yomi cannot rival me."

Kurama had a hard time believing it, but figured there was no point in interrupting.

"Enough bragging, though—you must already know this." She sighed lightly. Well, it seemed like a sigh—it was more of a slight whisper of air that could only be described as a sigh. "I'm finished rambling on what you should have gathered previous. I will fight you all soon anyway. Well, two of you; the concept of pairs will carry into the final round, I'm _so _sorry to say, so you all must bicker amongst yourselves to choose. If, that is, you make it to the final round."

The funny buzzing noise increased, then faded, and the barely-lighter screen darkened again.

Koenma turned off the giant TV, then looked over at his team, and oddly to the other two, it seemed to be namely Chichiro he focused on.

"Any of you have any brilliant ideas as to why she would have spoken so quietly? (Frankly, I'm not sure how she did it…that was insanely soft.)"

Chichiro grinned. "Isn't it obvious? She was telling us who she was."

"She was speaking as soft as the wind," Kurama agreed.

Hiei glared at both of them, standing. "What these fools are trying to say is that your assumption about it being Kagura was correct. They're just avoiding the point and making it tedious in explanation."

"Right," Koenma replied slowly. "Are you all going to listen to her about showing her what you're capable of?"

Chichiro shrugged. "If she offers any threats large enough we'll have to. But if all the teams are as easy as the last, probably not."

Hiei snorted. "What do you mean, 'easy as the last'? You didn't even fight. And besides, you were crooning on about how we concluded the battle so quickly."

Chichiro glared at him. "I complimented on the speed, yes, but I didn't say it looked hard."

Hiei opened his mouth to say something else before Kurama muttered, "Well, I can see where this is headed," and stood, leaving the room.

"Yeah; I know I'm not always the most mature of the bunch, but you two take the cake," Koenma agreed, following him.

Chichiro blinked, then looked back at Hiei, narrowing her eyes. He glared back, and finally they both twitched, looked away and 'hn'ed at the same time.

--

The first round lasted a long while. There were many demons that thought of Kagura as a worthy opponent, obviously, and wanted the chance to fight her.

Kurama found that reading was fairly much the only thing that was available to do. He had stuffed his bag of things (Which contained extra clothes, all of his handy microwaveable ramen, some books, and a few medicines, should there be a need for them) under his bed, during which time he was poked in the eye by a loose spring and attacked by a few rogue spiders. It was now causing an uncomfortable lump on his back whenever he laid down. He couldn't move it, however, for if it were in the open any random demon could steal it. None of the things were particularly important to him, but they were useful nonetheless.

Currently he was reading A Wrinkle in Time. He wasn't particularly fond of the plot or the writing style, and it was far below the normal level of reading he enjoyed, but since he'd been given so little time to choose what to bring, he hadn't been able to look for books and thus had settled on whatever he could find.

He sensed Chichiro walk by, and looked to the doorway.

She flashed the peace sign, an amusingly human move that Kurama assumed she had picked up in Japan or from one of her spirit detective friends. "Busy?" Kurama shook his head, but she still seemed to feel like explaining and said, "I saw you reading and figured you might be."

"No," he responded, "there is really nothing in these pages quite worth reading, but I'm quite honestly bored out of my mind."

Chichiro smirked. "Yeah, me too. Which, consequently, brings me to what I was going to ask." Kurama just looked expectant, and Chichiro wasted no time answering the question in his gaze. "You want to go for a walk? I mean, sure, what we can see from our windows isn't too fun, but there are woods farther out. And you could bring that weird little thing you use to talk to Koenma on."

"My cell phone?" Kurama guessed, and Chichiro just shrugged, clueless, as she didn't know the item by its name. "It's a tad out of range, being that we're in another world. So I'd have to bring a communication mirror instead."

"'Communication mirror'?"

Kurama held out the small, purple device that Yusuke had found so convenient in previous cases. "This. Anyway, sure. A walk sounds better than reading."

Chichiro grinned.

--

Hiei sighed, lying back on his bed. He hated beds. Granted, this happened to be the worst bed he'd ever sat on, but besides that he hated the objects in general. He would have gone out to the woods, but he figured the fights could start at any time, and unlike Kurama, the youkai had not been given a communicator mirror. (Or rather, he told Koenma he didn't need one, since he had a jagan, but Koenma didn't know how to contact him mentally, and Hiei didn't quite see any charm in having to monitor the prince's thoughts constantly.)

He sensed Chichiro and Kurama leaving the stadium, and focused in on their thoughts with his jagan to perceive their conversation. He had nothing better to do, after all.

"How much longer 'til the fights, do you think?" That belonged to Chichiro, obviously directed at Kurama.

"I'm not sure," he replied, "but it'll probably be a while, seeing as how there are so many demons interested in using Kagura for self gain."

Chichiro nodded. People unconsciously thought about their movements before they did them, thus Hiei could tell what they were doing as well as where they were.

"Who'll fight next, Kurama?"

"Well, if you'd like—"

"Already gathered," Chichiro interjected. "Who's going to fight with me, though?"

"I don't know. Hiei might want to."

Chichiro snickered. "With me fighting? Doubtful." Hiei could sense the slightest hurt in her thoughts when she said it, though she lied to even herself about caring about it. Hiei couldn't help but smirk.

"Well, we'll ask anyway," Kurama told her. "But I'm assuming you're right."

Chichiro randomly had the urge to sing, or hum, but she apparently didn't fancy the idea of doing it in front of someone. As a song popped into her head, and a gruesome flash of a couple of mutilated corpses flew across her thoughts, Hiei flinched suddenly. His eyes widened, and he flickered from his room.

Back in the woods, Kurama and Chichiro stopped at a spring. "Well, if that isn't a tad out of place," Chichiro mumbled, earning a smile from Kurama.

"Yes, it does seem a bit tranquil, considering."

Suddenly, Chichiro's ears swiveled backward, and her hair whipped around as she jerked her head to the side, looking behind her. Her fox ears twitched and moved to face the direction of whatever had disturbed her, and she glared around.

"What is it?" Kurama asked.

She didn't respond, her two tails stiff, their fur on end, and finally she relaxed and shrugged with an easy smile, as if nothing had happened. "Nothing. Thought I sensed something."

A strange mix between an off-beat tune and a buzz sounded, and Kurama pulled the communication mirror from his pocket. "The next round is starting!" Koenma shouted at them impatiently. "Get back here _now_!"

Kurama nodded, and stuffed it back into his pocket, turning to Chichiro. "You get that?"

"Way past you," she replied, and shot off at a run through the woods. Kurama could barely keep up with her, but he could see she could run much faster simply from the held-back expression on her face. Sure he was in human form, but Kurama had always prided himself on his speed even through that. Now he felt as inferior speed-wise as when he was around Hiei—no telling how fast Chichiro was. Still, she waited for him.

Back at the area they'd just left, crimson eyes followed their retreating forms coldly. After the images and the song had flashed in Chichiro's mind, something had sparked in Hiei's memory as well. As he watched her getting closer to the arena, he followed them and reappeared in his room before their return. Did he recognize Chichiro?

Koenma arrived at his door just as the thought crossed Hiei's mind, and the prince relayed the same message he'd given Kurama.

"So I've noticed," replied Hiei, standing and moving in the blink of an eye to the edge of the arena, waiting for the others.

"Hiei, are you going to fight again?" Kurama asked, coming up behind him.

"Hn."

Kurama sighed. "Guess I'm fighting with you, then," he told Chichiro.

Chichiro shrugged. "Not that I mind," she said, grinning.

As they walked toward the ring, Kurama commented in a low voice. "This isn't your full demon form, is it?"

"Nope," she replied cheerfully. "But I doubt that's anything new to you; after all, I can sense that you also have a different, stronger form, and Hiei, too."

Kurama nodded, and they both sprang onto the ring. Their opponents weren't on yet, so Chichiro glanced backward before talking to Kurama after seemingly assessing that the fire demon behind them was out of hearing range. "What _is_ it with Hiei?"

"What's what?"

"He's so…distant."

"That's just Hiei for you."

"…He never smiles."

"No. It wouldn't be like him to."

"Hn." She turned to look at the set of doors opposite them. "Come _on_," she growled, to no one visible.

As if on cue, a pair of demons appeared in the shadow of the doorway, and walked toward the ring. The first one to face them was another lightning demon; he was incredibly tall, like the wind demon in the last round, and he had yellow streaks not so different from lightning bolts across his cheekbones. Following immediately after him was a cat demon; she was a bit shorter than an average human girl and had pink hair and black cat ears, as well as a cattail.

"I'll take the girl," Chichiro told Kurama, and again she couldn't help but be reminded of anime.

The fox nodded and went to stand in front of the lightning demon. _How fun_, he thought sarcastically. _Another lighting demon. Will I ever fight something_ other _than a lightning demon?_

As the formless voice sounded, "BEGIN!" Chichiro sprang immediately at the cat demoness. The smaller non-human was taken aback, barely able to dodge the split-second attack by Chichiro, which left a large dent in the floor of the ring. Chichiro countered again, swinging her body around using the base of her arm on the ground, and back-kicked the cat on the surface of her temple, sending her flying backward.

Kurama summoned his rose whip, lashing out at the demon before him, who crossed his arms behind his back casually and leapt upward to avoid the crack of the whip.

It was then that Kurama realized the huge amount of energy coming from the demon's brow. It was almost like he had a jagan that wasn't visible, or that his power came from an unknown mark, quite that of Bui in the final round of the Dark Tournament, that emitted all his spirit energy.

When Chichiro leapt at her opponent a third time, while the cat demoness was still down, the girl sprang up and jumped away from Chichiro's swinging arms, twisting around to face her.

"Bad move, cat girl!" Chichiro cried, and lashed her claws out at the cat, smacking them across her face and neck, then she began to hit her from many different places at such a speed that it seemed nearly as if it were at the same time. After hearing the girl's elbows and a single hip bone shatter, Chichiro let up her attack and stood off, watching the cat fly back toward the ground and hit with a large crash. Confident in the fact that she would not get back up, the fox demoness smirked, then turned to look over at Kurama.

She sensed immediately the same thing Kurama had, her eyes widening, and just as Kurama dove for the demon, Chichiro shouted, "_Down, Kurama! Get down now!_"

The fox-in-disguise before her, confused, had little choice but the duck and trust her. Immediately after Kurama's body was out of its way, the lightning demon's brow emitted a huge energy wave, no doubt made from some sort of electricity, which shot forward and slammed into the wall of the arena, taking many of the spectator demons with it.

Chichiro summoned a fireball and threw it from a distance that wouldn't put her in danger, hitting the demon's forehead between his eyes, then closed her own. Her red spirit energy gathered into the form of a large, twisted hilt in her black-clawed hands. From the hilt sprang a huge amount of light and energy, not so different from Kuwabara's spirit sword, and wind curled around it. When it finished its formation, Chichiro threw the sword toward the still-dazed lightning demon's side. The startled, suddenly skewered demon grimaced, and the energy from his brow was cut off just long enough for Kurama to raise his whip and end the fight.

The fox demon drew in a light breath, shook himself and stood from his crouch, looking over at Chichiro. The hilt of the energy sword retrieved itself from the demon's inners and flew back to her hand, where it vaporized back into her body. She blinked over at Kurama.

Unable to do anything but stare, he decided it was better left without a serious comment anyway, and walked over toward her. "Nice job, there," he decided on.

"Not so bad yourself," she replied, adding, "But your sensing reflexes could use a bit of a check-up," with a grin.

"Yes, thank you for that warning."

Chichiro shrugged it off and they walked back to the others as the same rumbling voice who always shouted 'begin' announced to the audience of their win. However, play-by-plays had not been given during the fights as they had been in the Dark Tournament, a fact which Kurama was glad for.

The victorious demoness glanced arrogantly over at Hiei. _Good enough for you_? Chichiro asked through mind-speak, and Hiei twitched. He hadn't assumed that she'd be so easily able to sense his jagan and use it for mental dialogue, but then again she had already surprised him by her powers within a few days.

"Hn." He turned and walked back down to his room, but Chichiro looked after him with a smirk, pleased with herself.

Kurama watched her for a moment, and for even a few seconds he let himself slip into thinking about how pretty she was, but he snapped himself out of it quickly. He didn't need to be thinking anything like that at a time like this. After all, he had never quite been strongly attracted to anyone and did not plan on it. At least not yet.

Chichiro glanced over at him from the corner of her eyes and said nothing. For a moment, Kurama had the crazy notion that she could read his mind, but then she turned to him and grinned, saying, "So, how about that walk, eh? Didn't get too far last time, did we?"

Kurama grinned back at her. "Are you suggesting we attempt again?"

"Always worth a try," she replied, in a mockingly grim voice, as if the matter were a hopeless attack in an imaginary war.

Kurama couldn't help but smile at her. She had her charms.


	4. Memory

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 4—Memory

--

"BEGIN!"

Chichiro watched the two fighters nearest where she was veer out around the outside of the ring and close in on their opponents. She sighed, scratching the back on her head idly, then twitched, glaring over at Hiei. He'd been staring at her on and off ever since the last fight.

"What is it?" she snarled. "Why are you staring at me?"

Hiei glared back at her for a moment, then gave a mild, "Hn," before looking away, walking back down the hallway.

Chichiro twitched again, growling, then shouted, "_DAMN IT_, HIEI! DON'T YOU IGNORE ME! I ASKED YOU A _QUESTION_ YOU—"

Kurama stopped her, placing his hand her shoulder. "You know he won't answer you."

She wheeled on him, looking quite savage. "I'll _make_ him answer me," she declared rabidly in return.

Kurama couldn't help but chuckle. "How, exactly, do you plan on managing that?"

Chichiro growled, then rolled her eyes and made an 'augh' sound, walking after Hiei, though not turning into his room and continuing on to her own instead.

Kurama grinned and, unable to help himself, called after her, "What? You aren't going to make him tell you?"

"Screw off!" was her reply, and she turned into her room after flashing her middle finger in his direction.

It seemed weird to him that she knew the meaning of the middle finger, as that was solely a human world thing. _Maybe she learned it from her spirit detective friends_, Kurama thought, chuckling to himself. He couldn't see anyone talking Hiei down about anything, let alone about a simple question.

In her room, Chichiro sighed. It had been a day since their last fight; the last few pairs had been taking a long while to defeat their opponents. They had been nice fights to observe, but now there were shorter, less interesting matches with lesser demons that caused her no amusement to watch.

She closed her eyes then, humming quietly the song that had been in her head the past two days, and willed the images of the torn bodies out of her mind.

Hiei watched her thoughts with his jagan, and for a moment the thought of someone watching her crossed her mind, but it vanished as quickly as it had come.

"Hn," Hiei said quietly in his own room. "So she can sense the jagan's presence in her mind as well."

It was then that Kurama appeared in his doorway. "Talking to yourself, Hiei?" the kitsune demon asked, sounding amused. "How unlike you."

"Hn. Do you have something useful to say, fox, or have you adopted Chichiro's way of annoying me without trying?"

Kurama grinned lightly. "No, I've actually got something to tell you."

"Well?"

"Our third fight is about to begin."

Hiei sat up and followed Kurama, then parted ways with him when Kurama turned toward Chichiro's room.

After they had all gathered at the base of the arena, Hiei spoke first. "I'm going next. If this tournament wasn't already boring enough, sitting around and not fighting is worse."

Kurama nodded, and looked at Chichiro. She didn't seem particularly enthused with the idea of fighting with Hiei.

Kurama sighed, resigning himself to the fact that he'd probably have to fight every round, but Chichiro stepped forward. "No, this is my fight," she said in a stiff voice.

Kurama blinked at her with surprise, then shrugged with an easy smile. "Alright."

Chichiro stepped on to the ring next to Hiei, who didn't move and just gave a simple, "Hn."

Facing them were two male demons, which looked like siblings. They were both around the same height, roughly six foot; the one facing Chichiro was a fire demon with black hair that looked, for lack of better words, 'emo'. Across from Hiei stood a fox demon, whose hair was dark as well, but long and pulled back into a ponytail. The tow of the opposing team had matching golden eyes, though the fox demon's black canine ears and single, bushy black tail made the two seem incredibly different.

Hiei and Chichiro, refusing to look at one another, decided without exchanging words to stick with the opponent they were facing. Chichiro "unsheathed" her several-inch-long black claws, which when shortened to their usual length looked like normal fingernails (Though sharpened) painted black, and lowered her body into a defensive position. Hiei didn't move, glancing at the fox demoness beside him briefly, his hands in his pockets.

After the formless voice called out, "BEGIN!" Chichiro crouched and sprang at her fire demon opponent, slashing her claws down across his torso. He leapt up, flipping backward, but Chichiro's attacks were relentless. He was forced to block with his own arms, and in no time at all his 'shields' had earned dozens of bloody gashes. After only a short while, the demon growled, thrusting his arms outward, and Chichiro leapt upward to avoid the long trails of fire that spiraled out of his arms.

On the opposite side of the arena, Hiei was having the first honest sword fight he'd had in a long while, and he couldn't deny he was actually almost enjoying himself. Almost. The fox demon's reactions were quick, and his attacks showed that he was obviously skilled, but the fight lacked action and proved to be boring. Hiei slashed faster than before and sprang away from his opponent's, raising his sword and leaping into the air, his katana crashing down above the other demon.

"Impatience will be your downfall," the fox demon commented idly, shoving against Hiei's sword, and the short half-Koorime was suspended for a moment before the demon below him whipped out a dagger, lashing out at Hiei while still holding out against his sword.

Hiei gritted his teeth as the dagger drew a long slash across his chest, and sprang back. "Don't try and lecture me," Hiei muttered, his sword clanging across the fox demon's again. "You'll find it a lost cause." With that, Hiei thrust out his katana, severing the arm of the other demon that held the dagger, and took advantage of his adversary's distraction to run him through with his sword. "Pitifully simple," Hiei sighed, ignoring his injury, and turned to watch the remnants of Chichiro's fight as the demon beside him fell sideways and was still.

The demoness was still dodging the fire trails—which thus far has been unable to get close enough for effect—and she didn't appear to have been injured yet. However, the demon's attacks were cut short as he realized the fox demon Hiei had faced had fallen. "Brother!" he and suddenly turned to Chichiro again with obvious rage despite the fact she hadn't been the one to kill him. His fire attacks instantly became more expert and trained, and Chichiro's countenance showed her surprise.

Hiei realized she probably wouldn't be able to destroy the demon now that his focus was completely on his sorrow. That fact made the chance of her being killed quite high, and (Though the prospect was likeable, he dare not inflict Kurama's rage on himself by doing nothing) he drew his bloody sword again, slashing across the remaining opponent's turned back.

Chichiro used the demon's preoccupation with his new attacker and dove toward him, unable to get a clear attack unless she allowed her arm to be singed, and thrust her sword through him as Hiei had with the demon's brother. She winced only once as the fire trail burned her left shoulder, and she straightened as the demon fell, glaring at Hiei. "What was _that_? I could have taken him on my own! Why did you intervene, damn it?"

"Hn," was Hiei's grunt of a response, then he explained, "Obviously you were going to get yourself killed. He was too blinded by rage to have given you a place to attack him, so I did instead. Although the thought of you being killed is fairly welcoming, it wouldn't have been convenient." He turned and leapt off the arena, walking back toward Kurama and Koenma as the voice announced that they were the winners.

Chichiro twitched. "…Der kermbies," she growled, roughly translating to something close to 'Arrogant jerk' in demon, though some would have argued that 'You jerk' would have been closer, stepping down to follow Hiei.

Kurama spoke first when they returned, addressing Hiei. "Are you alright? That wound looks—"

"I'm fine," was the flat reply, and Hiei didn't wait for a response, walking past him and heading back to his room.

Chichiro stared after him in apparent wonder, but Kurama turned, not baffled by Hiei's pain tolerance as Chichiro appeared to be, to the demoness. "And you?"

Not to be shown up, Chichiro ignored the horrid sting of her burn and shrugged. "Uh, fine." She was still surprised at Hiei; his wound was pretty deep, though the bleeding had slowed and would probably stop relatively soon, but he hadn't shown any signs of even noticing it—not even a pained look in his eyes. She shook her head and looked toward Kurama.

The fox could tell otherwise at the 'fine', but he didn't mention it and figured it was probably arrogance that kept her from admitting it.

Chichiro found nothing holding her there, and left to walk down the hallway, though she didn't turn into her room like Hiei had. Rather, she continued out of the arena and started to walk back to the woods, slowing only when she heard rapid footfalls behind her. Her eyes fell on Kurama. "Yes?"

"Hey, where are you off to?"

She shrugged, cursing herself in her mind when she allowed herself to flinch at the movement of her left arm. "Just back to that little spring we found. The arena isn't too interesting."

"Mind if I join?" the kitsune demon asked.

"I'd like it if you would," Chichiro replied with a smile.

--

Hiei hadn't been acting; well, not overly so. He didn't really notice his injury. Maybe it was the fact he'd had his arm cut off at one point and a simple gash didn't seem like much, but whatever the case he saw no need to react to the wound strongly. Or at all.

His mind had been surprisingly clear ever since the fight, almost as if he had lost more blood than he thought, but he knew it wasn't so. What it had been wasn't obvious to him, so he simply disregarded it and took advantage of his random clarity of thought. After all, he wasn't exactly a light thinker; to have his mind so silent seemed almost like a luxury.

…Then again, Chichiro's thoughts continued to bother him. Those images, together with that chillingly familiar song…he recognized them. Not just as a similarity to another scene he'd seen elsewhere (As dead bodies seemed fairly consistent in his life, though often it tended to be more than two.), but those same couple of bodies and that same song. Hell, he was fairly positive that if someone asked him, he could recite the song perfectly (Not that he would, but he was sure he could.). It bothered him that he couldn't connect the reasoning for it being familiar. He didn't think he could so easily forget something like that, at yet it managed to elude him. Which only meant he had somehow forgotten it, or that he had never found it particularly important and it was just a wisp of a memory. He was half betting on the second.

Simply out of boredom, he decided to go hunt for bandages to dress his wound with. As he exited his room, he noticed Kurama and Chichiro leaving together again, and he scowled at how easily Kurama was getting along with her. It was beyond him how the fox could tolerate someone so irritating, no less actually enjoy being with them. Rolling his eyes and looking down the hallway the opposite way, he resisted a growl when he realized he would have to follow them at least a short ways to get out of the hallway. It was obvious that he would not find bandages in that section of the arena, as the three rooms they were sleeping in were the only ones currently in use in that hall.

Glaring after Kurama and Chichiro as they headed toward the forest, wishing sorely that the spirit fox could see his accusatory look and snap out of it, he turned left and began walking around the outside of the massive stadium.

--

"Did you and Hiei know each other before this tournament?"

The question caught Chichiro off guard, and she stared briefly at Kurama before stumbling over a response. "Well, I guess you could…" She paused and then narrowed her eyes at him, placing a hand on her hip and pointing at him as she noticed in a nearly chiding tone, "That was a really weird question. Really random."

"Do you?" Kurama prompted, not harshly.

Chichiro looked sideways at the water, away from Kurama, and was silent. Something shimmered in her eyes beyond the reflection of the brook, and the fox demon near her could only wonder what she was thinking of.

Letting it go, Kurama looked to the brook as well. Out of reflex, he asked, "How is your arm?"

Absently, Chichiro mumbled, "Fine."

Kurama didn't think she had meant to lie that time around about her wound—she sounded too out of it to really answer honestly or dishonestly. By how spacey she had gotten after the question involving Hiei, he knew the only logical thing to do was to assume that yes, they did know each other. But neither had seemed to recognize each other when they first 'met' in Koenma's office, and it seemed almost as though Chichiro wasn't sure where she knew Hiei from even now. All the same, Kurama didn't like being intrusive and didn't question further.

As his stomach complained of its emptiness, Kurama stood, planning on going back to the arena and satisfying its hunger. "Would you like anything to eat?" he asked, figuring Chichiro could gather easily enough that he would be leaving by the question if she wasn't going to come along.

"Not really, thanks." She looked up at him, offering him a small but convincing smile. She didn't seem sad, upset or angry, just…distant. Exactly how she'd described Hiei earlier. "I'll be back later," she promised, giving a low wave to him as he nodded and left.

Chichiro sat for a very long time beside the water in silence. Her mind ran with questions that no doubt Kurama had considered as well about her past with Hiei, but she honestly couldn't answer many more of them than Kurama could. Did she know him? Yes, she thought she did. Where did she know him from? She wasn't sure. And it bothered her. How long ago did she meet him? A long time ago, but she didn't know when.

Scowling to herself, she glared at her reflection simply because there was nothing else around to direct her new foul mood at. Dropping a nearby stone into the brook, she watched as her face was rippled across, then sighed once lightly and looked away from the water. Faintly in the back of her mind she realized that her shoulder still hurt and that she should have bandaged it long back.

Hiei was near. She could sense him, suddenly, and knew he must have just arrived in the area, or else she would have sensed him much sooner. Rising to her feet, her two blue fox tails swishing absently behind her as she did so, she headed away from the water's side, following his energy.

When she found him, he seemed too distracted to notice her presence. His sword was drawn, and with swift, fluid movements he was either following through a kata or attacking an imaginary opponent with his blade fast enough that human eyes would not be able to follow him. His wasn't wearing a shirt or his cloak, and she could see a bandage around his chest where he'd been wounded in the fight. A red strap went around the back and front of his torso, securing the sheathe of his sword in place diagonally between his shoulder blades. Chichiro noticed the bandage on his right arm for the first time, and her eyebrows rose the slightest bit in curiosity—she didn't remember him being injured on his arm.

Silently summoning her own weapon, Chichiro stepped behind him and, just as he swung backward in his next attack, she raised her blade and let it clash against his.

He appeared surprised for only a flickering hint of a second before his countenance quickly changed to irritation. His katana withdrew from the position and lashed out at her neck on the opposite side, though her own sword matched his speed and was easily there to block it. "I'm not one for friendly spars," Hiei growled flatly, holding his sword against hers without moving to release the position or to attack again.

"Who ever said anything about this being friendly?" Chichiro responded coldly, stepping sideways and beginning to walk around him.

Hiei circled along with her, his crimson eyes never leaving her face; he never lost focus on his blade even so, and they both shoved against their blades evenly and didn't move to attack or submit to the other's strength. "I suppose no one," he replied tonelessly, and lighting fast he pulled back his sword and slashed out at her again. She blocked, his katana clashing against her light and wind sword, and immediately they switched position again. Several, odd-sounding clangs of metal on energy disturbed the silence of the woods before Hiei spoke again. "All the same, sparring is generally sportsmanlike practice."

"Without any true harm intended," Chichiro agreed. Their eyes never left each others. "But it doesn't insist a friendly or sportsmanlike approach."

"No, it infers it."

Their weapons hit a few more times before Chichiro spun around him and aimed for his back. He moved forward to avoid the stabbing motion and maneuvered his sword against the tip of the hilt of hers, moving her blade upward and hitting it out of the way to slash at her wounded shoulder. She evaded the attack and their swords met again as they evenly shoved weight against them. Neither of them moved for over a full minute.

Then Chichiro smacked his blade sideways, straightening her own at her side and advancing one step, beginning to growl roughly, "Do you—?"

"Yes," Hiei responded immediately, not fighting against her move, since she offered no attack after knocking back his weapon, "I remember you. I couldn't place it until now."

Narrowing her eyes at him, Chichiro regarded him with a cold, hateful glare for only the briefest of moments before she spun and began walking away without further comment.

Hiei called after her, "You're leaving your back open to attack."

Without turning to him, Chichiro raised her sword in a casual motion to draw his attention to it, and said, "Yes, but I'd slash you in half before you could try anything. So I know you won't."

And then she was gone. Hiei stared after her a long while before he flicked his sword once and then sheathed it, giving only a small 'hn' before he turned and went to follow her back to the arena.

As Chichiro stormed into the hallway, closely followed by distracted-looking Hiei, Kurama glanced after them, blinking once; Chichiro seemed…stiff, angry. Hiei didn't seem too different than usual, but he was watching Chichiro more closely—warily? Staring at the two, he called, "Where were you two?" not feeling the need to specify that he meant where they had been _together._

There were two different responses, both muttered almost incoherently. One of them said "Killing each other" and the other said what sounded like "Shopping". He could easily assume which had said which, and simply decided he probably didn't want to know what had actually transpired between them.


	5. Spars and Antics

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 5—Sparring and Antics

--

Kurama woke to being prodded in the ribs by something, and not gently. He groaned, rubbed his eyes and glared with his single opened eye at Hiei, muttering groggily, "What?"

"When do we fight?" the fire demon asked flatly. He withdrew his katana hilt from its place at Kurama's side, returning it to its sheath where it was again at his belt (returned from the back-strap he'd used the previous day.) and looking down at the redhead with his normal belittling glance.

The fox sighed from his place on the uncomfortable bed, and said, "Is that all you woke me for?"

Hiei raised his eyebrows and growled, "Don't make me ask you again."

Forcing himself to sit up, Kurama stretched and yawned, and through his yawn he told the fire demon in answer to his question, "I'm not sure." He lowered his raised arms and looked up at Hiei after he'd finished yawning. "Probably later today. Why?"

Predictably, he only received an unenthusiastic, "Hn."

Blinking up at his sociopath friend, Kurama couldn't hide the humor from his voice as he asked, "Are you really _that_ bored?"

"Hn."

And then Hiei was gone from sight, and Kurama mumbled, "I guess I'm getting up now," as he moved to swing his legs over the side of his bed.

Having no further interest or reason for bothering Kurama, the fire demon reappeared far outside, probably a mile or so away from the arena. Drawing his sword, he slashed it sideways and allowed it to cut a few inches into the nearest tree trunk. Releasing the hilt, he tore off his bandana, allowing his jagan eye to open and begin to glow. Feeling power surging through his body, he ripped the sword from the tree and watched as his energy crackled around the blade.

Chichiro dropped from one of the branches around him, standing before him and summoning her light and wind sword, holding it before her. "Impressive weapon," she commented, nodding to his calmer variation of the Sword of the Darkness Flame.

He only glared at her in silence for a moment, then position the blade in front of him and muttered flatly, "You're late," as he sprang for her.

--

"_KURAMA!_"

At the shout, the fox was tempted to summon his rose whip. Instead, he just shot up from his place sitting down on his bed and set down his book, calling, "What is it, Chichiro?" as he ran toward the hallway. He'd heard some sort of explosion not two seconds before the demoness called his name, or at least an incredibly loud noise that would pass as a convincing substitute for the sound of an explosion.

She shot in from outside, grabbing his arm and dragging him over to the wall, pressing him there with her arm, keeping him out of sight of the doorway. "Shh, _shh!_" She leaned out the door and glanced down toward the outside of the arena, then hissed, "If Koenma asks, you haven't seen me, and you know _nothing_ about his exploding micro-cooker-thingy."

Kurama relaxed noticeably, then said, "Well, truth be told I _don't_ know anything about his exploding…erm… 'Micro-cooker-thingy'. What exactly have you done to his microwave?"

She blinked over at him, looking appalled. "What?" she cried, seeming offended. "You think _I_ did something to his micro…thing?"

"Microwave," Kurama repeated, then shrugged. "No, I wasn't accusing you. I was just…"

"Well, you did think I did something. I never said anything about accusations." She leaned out into the hallway again, and he saw her stiffen right before she cried, "Crap!" and scrambled over to the corner, literally crawling up the wall with her back against the concrete. Her long, black claws were unsheathed and kept her where she was, her head against the ceiling, and she put one finger to her lips in a 'shh' motion.

Kurama gave her an odd look, then turned to Koenma as the toddler prince stormed in. He was in his teenage form, fuming, and…smoking? The tips of his hair looked singed, and his eyes blazed with rage. "­_Where­_. Is. She."

Kurama blinked once, trying to keep his countenance blank and not allow it to reflect his amusement at the prince's appearance, and said, "I assume you mean Chichiro?"

Koenma's eyes snapped to Kurama from where they had been scanning the room. "So you've seen her?"

"No," Kurama responded smoothly, believably, "but Chichiro is the only 'she' I can fathom you talking about here, besides Kagura. And Kagura didn't seem particularly logical to consider as—"

"Alright, alright!" Koenma spat, seeming to simmer down the slightest bit. "If I were an annoying, pyromaniac demoness, where would I be…?"

Kurama raised his eyebrows. "Pyromaniac?"

"Yes," the prince mumbled, "after _that_ display, I'm sure that she's—" But he'd looked past Kurama and spotted Chichiro, and he pointed, snarling vehemently, "_You!_"

Chichiro squeaked and sprang down, shooting past the prince through the small opening between him and the door, and probably headed down the hallway. Koenma sped after her and out of sight.

Kurama just stared after them blankly, then shrugged and went back to sit on his bed, picking up his book again and opening to the page he'd left off on.

Not two minutes later, Chichiro reappeared in his room, huffing, and sprang in a single leap from the doorway to his bed, hiding behind him.

Kurama waited a moment of staring at the page before him before he lowered the book with a sigh and asked, "Yes?"

The words that spilled Chichiro's lips were said so rapidly that he barely had time to understand them. "Well, I was sparring with Hiei—" That surprised Kurama, but he didn't bother attempting to speak; he doubted with how fast she was speaking that he would have been able to anyway. "—and then I decided that I was hungry and wanted to bother Koenma, so I figured that going to his room to use the microwave would be the easiest since I could do both, but he wasn't there so I tried to use it by myself and apparently if you put metal in it, it catches on fire, so I put more metal in there and then it exploded and then Koenma found it and I ran and then I came here to hide from him and then—"

Barely able to cut into her single-breath jumble of words, Kurama finally interrupted, "I know the rest from there." He shook his head and then finally looked back at her. "Are you still running from him?"

She lowered herself in her crouch so that her head was behind his back save for her eyes, which looked out over one of her hands that were rested on his shoulders. "Nope. Now I'm trying to hide."

Kurama let his face rest in his hand for a short moment before mumbling into his palm, "I'm not sure it's going to work to hide here again. Much less in plain sight."

She sat up at that, and said indignantly, "I am _not_ in plain sight!" She glanced down at herself, furrowed her brows, and then said, "Well, I wasn't a few moments ago…Anyhoo, you're right. I have to find a better place to hide." She glanced around his room, and then noticed not for the first time, "Man, these rooms are _bare_."

Ignoring her observation, Kurama said, "I do believe you're Koenma's temporary Jorge replacement."

"Who?"

"Never mind." Glancing around him, he realized that she was correct—the rooms were too bare for her to hide in. "Better try outside," Kurama suggested casually, lifting his book again.

"Thanks!" She then ran from the room, and Kurama muttered something about how nuts she was before he laid back onto his pillow and crossed his legs as he stretched them out in front of him.

Almost immediately, his reading was disturbed again. This time it was Hiei, asking from the doorframe, "Have you seen Chichiro?"

Kurama quirked a single eyebrow over at the fire demon. "Why do you want to know?"

"I have a late assassination to carry out," he said flatly, without humor. "Tell me, have you or not?"

Kurama pondered a moment whether he was serious or not, and then responded, "I did see her not too long ago. She should be out in the woods hiding from Koenma."

Hiei was gone almost immediately after Koenma's name passed through Kurama's lips, and silently the fox hoped for no further distractions and raised his book yet again and attempted to find his place once more.

--

Chichiro glanced up as Hiei walked into the clearing; she no longer seemed flustered or worried over the incident with Koenma, if she ever had been save for effect and humor.

Not surprisingly, and despite the fact that he was the one just arriving, the first thing Hiei said to her was, "You're late, again. Where were you?"

"I have better things to do than spar with you once and a while," she told him unenthusiastically, not leaning off of the tree her back was against.

"I doubt that," Hiei commented dryly. "The only thing you have to do here besides fight with me is destroy something that belongs to Koenma, which you've already done. Now that you've had your fun, I assume you'll be able to keep your pitiful attention span focused long enough to spar?"

Chichiro felt her twin blue tails bristling, but she bit back rebuttals. "Yes, I'm ready to fight you again." Since that first day that they had held a mini-spar, they had been fighting one another every few hours or so to battle off boredom and any rusty skills they may have developed. This was their third or fourth meeting, now—she couldn't recall the number and was annoyed that she even came as close as she did to remembering. She had decided already that she shouldn't care about the number, and shouldn't remember anything besides how to defeat him. A murderer like him wasn't worth any more of her memory than that.

As Hiei came to stand before her, she didn't summon her weapon as usual, nor did she even unsheathe her claws. Instead, she just leaned off of the trunk and got into a defensive stance, setting her arms before her and lowering closer to the ground.

Hiei drew his katana, but likewise didn't summon any energy; he didn't move to attack, either, and asked in what could have been considered a mocking tone, "Finally learned not to attack blindly?"

"No," Chichiro responded coolly, attempting not to lose it and attack him like she badly itched to, "I'm just shaking things up a bit. I've been attacking first far too often—it's your turn, now."

Only a small, "Hn," was offered before Hiei leapt upward and drove his sword downward at Chichiro.

It was a simplistic, purely experimental move, and Chichiro recognized it as half-assed simply so that she'd offer attack of her own. Gritting her teeth and resisting any insults that she felt like flinging at him, she simply blocked and swerved sideways quickly, sliding off behind him and again resuming a defensive stance. _No attacks yet,_ she told herself, though her arms twitched in anticipation of swinging her blade at him and his own sword. _I have to read better into his attacks…No more draws for these spars. I want to win, not to let it settle at a tie again._

Hiei seemed to recognize this fact, and after his second less-than-serious attack, he finally switched into complete offense, and Chichiro noted an immediate change in power within him. She had actually considered his half-ass attacks fairly strong, but even though she could still tell he was holding back simply because this was a spar, he almost matched her within seconds. Almost—she thought she could still barely feel the slightest advantage on her side even if she was only offering defense. _Better not be too cocky_, she decided, and disregarded the power shift as she sprang up and flipped over him.

As she sensed his sword turning ridiculously fast in the middle of his attack aimed where she had just been, she shifted sideways midair and barely evaded having her right foot sliced in two. She was tempted again to shout at him, this time about being careful, but that would have been a stupid request and she didn't bother raising it. Besides, he was attacking again and she had no time to shout.

Racing into the cover of the trees, she waited until she sensed him turn and follow her before she actually let herself go as quickly as she was able, or at least as quickly as she was willing to display openly to him. Even if her pace was more rapid than most demons could match—faster than Kurama, no doubt—Hiei kept up with her in the branches of the trees beside her chosen path easily, and didn't seem to have any trouble doing so. _Damn, he's fast…_

Hiei had resisted the urge to keep a constant watch of Chichiro's thoughts, being that this was not an actual fight and he figured it should be as fair as possible (He was, after all, much stronger than she was, he thought—she didn't have a chance against him.), but that last one was just too unguarded for his jagan not to pick it up. _Of course I'm fast,_ he thought, not responding out loud or telepathically, even though he spoke to her without her knowing it. Or, perhaps 'he mocked her' would better suit what his thoughts were doing. _So stop running, there's no way you can outmatch my speed._ "Are you going to keep running all day?" Hiei asked impatiently, dropping down before her with a single large leap. As she slowed for a short second, then veered to the right, he followed at a quicker pace that soon overtook her own and continued, "I thought we were sparring, not playing tag."

But he had underestimated her speed, Chichiro knew as she picked up her own pace. He may have thought she wasn't too fast compared to him, but she could barely see the hint that he actually had to try to meet her speed when she shot forward quicker. "I guess patience isn't your strongpoint?" Chichiro assumed aloud as she skidded to a halt and finally sprang for him.

Hiei had expected her claws, a punch, a kick, or perhaps her light and wind sword; what he had not been expecting was her to tackle him and throw him backward using only the force of her body as it flew toward him, quite like an animal would have while trying to pin its quarry. But Chichiro only held onto his arms as she came forward at him only long enough to throw him against a tree ten or fifteen feet behind where he had been when she leapt, and to jump back she rammed her knees onto his chest and pushed off of his pinned body to flip backwards. He also hadn't thought that she would be as strong as she proved to be when he slammed into the trunk, so it was rather surprising to him when he felt it crack behind him. Luckily he was able to catch himself before he fell even though he had had the wind knocked from him, and he kicked off the nearest branch when his feet hit it.

Ignoring the irritating pain on his back and the buds of frustration threatening to grow at the back of his mind, his countenance settled into one of annoyance as he lashed out at her with his katana. It was a faking strike; in her left over arrogance from her successful attack, she didn't pick up on the subtle hints that it was a feigned attack. Thus when she moved to the right to avoid his blade, raising her arm to evade the sword as it was thrust upward toward her limb, Hiei was able to shoot out his left arm and let it slam onto the flesh between her neck and shoulder on her right side. Taking advantage of her distraction at the newer, switched attack, he slashed his sword again at her left side, this time downward and twisting toward her inner shoulder rather than her arm.

Chichiro had picked up on the second attack, and she was able to dip beneath it and strike for his face with her fist. The hit on her throat ached, but it only fueled her drive. When Hiei blocked her punch with his left arm, and moved to again block—this time a kick—with his right hand, she spun and swung her leg at his exposed torso. Infuriatingly fast, he caught her ankle and twisted her around so that she was facing the ground when they finally hit. Though her face was in the dirt, she didn't let that or the pain bother her, kicking his knees. For the first time, she heard him make a small noise of pain—not much, but it was at least a comfort for her pride. She quickly lifted herself off the ground into a position quite like she had just done a push-up with only one leg extended, and smacked his feet out from beneath him with her other leg.

Immediately after Hiei felt the ground against his back, Chichiro was on top of him with her newly-summoned light and wind sword thrusting at his neck; he had managed to put his own katana between his throat and her weapon before the strike connected, but he was at a disadvantage now and Chichiro's blade was dangerously close to slitting his throat.

He decided casually in that moment that he would no longer think of this as 'sparring', but as 'practice'. Sparring was friendly, and power was held back. Practice had no rules save for not killing your opponent, and even that term was a stretch now with how eager the fox demoness seemed to kill him.

Pushing against her sword, Hiei weaved his pinned legs out from beneath her and wrapped them around hers so that the insides of their knees were linked; now that she had lost her bracing footing, with a single heave, he threw her forward and in turn pinned her down with his blade at _her_ throat.

This led to them rolling sideways and finally hitting the base of a tree trunk that lay in their path. At that, they untwined themselves and sprang back away from each other to stand. They were both breathing semi-hard, and they could easily read in one another's eyes that the other was just as frustrated as themselves with how quickly they had gotten winded. The fight hadn't been too long yet, it had just been fast-paced. Most fast-paced battles didn't last long, and generally one of the opponents won or the fight simply slowed down.

Letting her sword rest barely-raised at her side, Chichiro huffed, "Draw?"

Flatly, irritably, Hiei agreed, "For now," and slid his katana back into its scabbard.


	6. The Fourth Fight

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 6—The Fourth Fight

--

The next round of the tournament had begun. After a brief discussion, Chichiro had grudgingly given in and let Hiei and Kurama fight. Currently, she was leaned against the wall of the stadium to watch, her arms crossed and her two tails swishing behind her in irritation. The two male demons from her team were standing in the ring before her.

For the first time the shapeless voice from the loudspeaker in the stadium boomed, "Please state your names."

The two across from Hiei and Kurama raised their voices before the other pair could. The first, a male wind demon, called out, "Nadaru." He wore a light-hued trench coat, and he had silver-white hair that greatly resembled Yoko's. Kurama realized with mild humor that a lot of the opponents, specifically the wind demons, looked a bit like Yoko.

The female wolf demoness beside him announced that her name was, "Wren." Her single wolf tail swished behind her Arabian-style pants, and atop her bluish hair, her black wolf ears twitched, probably from anticipation toward the battle that was soon to follow.

Lacking any direction to call toward, Kurama didn't shift his position and continued to face the opposite team as he said, "Kurama."

Rather than a name, the only thing offered by the fire demon standing beside him was, "Hn."

Kurama coughed to cover his surprise, hissing, "Hiei!" in a chiding tone. Louder, awkwardly, he called out, "His name is Hiei."

Without delay, the formless voice shouted, "BEGIN!"

As Wren crouched before him and unsheathed her mean-looking claws, Kurama summoned his rose whip. In the middle of a singular blink from the spirit fox, the demoness disappeared. His eyes narrowed for a split second, and then he sprang sideways from instinct just as Wren's glowing blue fist slammed into the ring right where he'd just been. He rolled sideways, gathering into a crouch and lashing his whip out at her. Oddly, she didn't dodge—she simply caught the whip, or rather set her hand before it and allowed it to be slashed in half. She showed no signs that she felt pain or registered what had happened, and she leapt for him again, swinging her fists at him with no visible pattern. As her torn hand swung for his face, Kurama was appalled to see that as it approached him, it was knitting itself back together and the gash was disappearing.

On the other side of the ring, Hiei's fight had begun with him drawing his katana from its sheathe as Nadaru withdrew a chain and sickle from its place lodged in his sash-belt. The curved blade was thrown toward Hiei, and as the fire demon ran sideways to dodge it, it seemed to be guided by demon energy and followed his movement in an arc heading back toward Nadaru. The wind demon caught the weapon when it failed to hit Hiei, and immediately sent it out again. Hiei sprang upward and managed to actually land on the swinging blade for a short second before he dove for Nadaru, using the wind demon's own weapon as a kick-off. Hiei's katana flicked up and slashed the demon's brow, and as Hiei flipped off, he was surprised to see that his slash had cut into the demon's now-visible jagan eye.

_A wind demon with a jagan…?_ he wondered, then assumed, _It must be an implant._

Nadaru's jagan suddenly changed color and became bright emerald rather than the red it had been before, and Hiei had to consider for a moment if the blood running down it had made it seemed crimson at first. _No,_ he decided, _it changed color._ Up until now, the demon hadn't done anything hinting at using a jagan, save for perhaps the use of energy to guide his weapon; Nadaru wouldn't have needed the jagan's power to do that, however. _If you aren't going to use it in a battle when you're at a disadvantage, why have one?_ Hiei wondered, not caring if he had a reason outside of battle to have it.

Kurama's fight continued to be aggravatingly one-sided, both in who was winning and who was throwing the blows, though both had claim to a different one. Kurama was offering all of the attacks, but Wren blocked them all with the hand he'd torn earlier and with every tear she became stronger and swifter; she seemed, by all evidence, to be winning the skirmish even though she wasn't giving any offense of her own.

Because he had found that his impulse was reliable in this fight, he sprang to the side when his instinct told him to. Instinct was wrong this time, and he felt a pressure slam onto his back. He gave a muffled grunt, but Hiei still caught the sound and turned toward him. Kurama rarely cried out during a battle, and he certainly hadn't expected the fox to during this tournament—frankly, Hiei had thought this would be easy. Neither Nadaru nor Wren were making an honest attempt to dodge attacks, but unlike Wren, Nadaru had not gained speed and his wounds had not healed after each laceration.

"Kurama!" Hiei called over.

The spirit fox knew well enough that Hiei wasn't worried and hadn't called to check on him, so after offering a quick, half-hearted attack to Wren, he threw a glance sideways at Hiei. In the few seconds he was able to focus on the fire demon before Wren dove for him again, he caught the gesture Hiei made to Nadaru's brow. Most demons wouldn't catch the indication, but the fox knew that it was aimed for Nadaru's jagan. By the look Hiei gave him before he faced Nadaru again and slashed at the male demon with his sword, he wanted Kurama to check Wren for a jagan as well.

_What's so interesting about a jagan…?_ Kurama wondered, but immediately his mind raced with possibilities for the oddity of it, and he decided against questioning Hiei's judgment. He'd never understood how the fire demon's mind worked, and didn't bother wondering now, so he turned back to Wren as she leapt for him, shouting out a battle cry as her elongated claws stretched out toward his face. As her body flew toward him, his eyes sought out her forehead and found it to be covered by a dark navy bandanna. With a flick of his wrist and some manipulated demonic energy, a vine-sword crawled along his outstretched arm and ripped the bandanna from her brow as he blocked her attack. Sure enough, a green jagan glistened beneath it, open wide and obviously being used. _Why conceal it if you're using it?_

Hiei looked back to Nadaru, having glanced over to Wren and Kurama to confirm that she did indeed have a jagan. As soon as his eyes rested once more on the male wind demon before him, the jagan on his brow flickered and became red. Hiei's eyes widened slightly, and then narrowed. _What the hell is going on here…?_

Kurama blinked once. Was he imagining it, or had Wren's jagan just change colors? He had heard not long ago from Hiei that there had been a development in demon world of a new jagan, one that didn't absorb as much of the new host's demonic energy when it was implanted and didn't hurt nearly as much, but though its abilities were more limited, it also had a few new ones. Could these two demons be a couple of the test subjects for it? He hadn't seen them use their jagans besides the colors changing, and he figured they could also be communicating.

Hiei decided to simply ignore their jagans for the moment; they weren't using them to aid their attacks, so he had nothing to worry about danger-wise from them. True, they could be using illegal in-the-ring telepathy and speaking with one another, but so far that had not affected the fight at all and he didn't bother worrying.

By the side of the arena, Chichiro watched with a scowl, her eyes mainly on Hiei. The fight was so one-sided on his end, she almost pitied Nadaru. And Kurama? He seemed to be losing to Wren. It was hard to battle a demon that could heal so quickly. All the same, despite her worry, her eyes remained riveted on the fire demon and not the fox. Why had she been so kind to him lately? Perhaps 'kind' wasn't correct—civil, more like. Why had she been so _civil_ to him? She should have hated him. _I do hate him_, she immediately thought, insistently, then gave a low growl. She turned away from the ring and headed back into the hallway and away from watching the fight. Neither demon noticed her leave.

Hiei found that he was becoming incredibly annoyed with this fight. He leapt forward and, knowing Nadaru wouldn't dodge it, ran his opponent through with his sword. Hiei didn't bother relishing the feel of the kill, and looked to Nadaru's brow to find that, as he had suspected, the jagan became red.

Hiei sensed Wren at the last moment, and was barely able to leap up to avoid her attack. As he glanced coldly sideways at the demoness, he thought, _What the hell? Why is _she_ attacking me?_ Although these were tag-team fights, he had thus far not seen opponents switch attack to a different demon mid fight. He had seen that some were emotionally attached to one another—such as the brothers they had fought before—but he had never seen them turn and attack someone else. Again referencing the brothers from earlier, the one who had survived near the end of the fight had continued to attack Chichiro even though Hiei had been the one to kill his sibling, yet Wren had decided to ignore Kurama. Hiei wasn't worried that she had killed Kurama (He could be wounded) or that it was her reasoning for helping Nadaru, so it was strange to him.

_The jagans,_ he assumed then. As said earlier, he had been the one to inform Kurama about the prototype jagans that had been showing around demon world lately, so he knew well that this probably was one of them. "_They're a new form of jagan being developed for the weaker demons whose energy is too pitiful to withstand a normal jagan, and whose nerves cannot handle the pain of the usual,_" Mukuro had told Hiei, back when he still worked on the patrol"_They have new…'advantages', though I've never seen one myself and cannot be sure what they are._" Still, so far this communication was the only thing he'd seen—the jagans changed color, he guessed, when they spoke to one another: red when Nadaru was speaking to Wren and green when Wren was alerting Nadaru to something. _Nadaru must have sought her aid_.

He aimed a single, quick attack at Wren's throat, slashing it open with ease, and then he looked to Kurama when she collapsed sideways. Flickering over to his friend, he glowered down at him with a raised eyebrow. Flatly, he asked the fox who was currently sitting casually on the ground, "What are you doing?"

"I felt like resting," Kurama responded sarcastically with a smile, then stood, wincing.

"You're injured. Where?"

"Worried about me?" the fox jested, his feigned smile turning to a grin.

Impatiently, Hiei growled, "Of course not. Where are you wounded?"

"My back, again," Kurama answered obediently.

"Again?"

"Yes." The fox sighed lightly. "Wren apparently enjoyed injuring my back."

"Hn." Hiei watched as Kurama straightened with effort from his pain-induced hunched-over position. "We should get you bandaged."

"I would like to," Kurama muttered, "but it seems that our fight is not yet over."

Hiei turned to watch Wren stand, dust herself off, then wipe the blood from her throat. Her neck was healed, and besides the blood that seemed incredibly out of place on her skin, she was untouched and unwounded.

Sensing Kurama making the attempt to stand (He had sat back again, though Hiei doubted he had intended to and had instead done so from weakness.), Hiei shoved his comrade back down, growling, "Don't be stupid. You're of no use now." Making sure the fox didn't try again to get up, he turned to Wren. He had fought fast-healing demons with seemingly endless ability before, and he wasn't worried that he wouldn't win—he was far too arrogant for that. But he was surprised Wren had survived having her throat slit all the same—the sword had gone in deep.

"You look surprised, Jaganshi," Wren commented with a smirk as she licked a small amount of the remaining blood from her finger.

Hiei didn't bother asking how she knew he had a jagan; it was unimportant. He also didn't waste time responding, and he flicked his sword free of her blood before contemplating how best to kill her.

Nadaru was keeled over already; not dead, but close. Wren was guarding him, but Hiei figured he'd be able to distract her by getting her to the other side of the ring long enough for him to teleport back to Nadaru and kill him. If she was his only opponent—though Nadaru wasn't posing much of a challenge, Hiei was sure not to underestimate him and get too cocky—he would have less to worry about and more time to consider Wren's death.

Wren, despite the guard she'd shown of Nadaru before, suddenly stepped back from him. Hiei's first thought was that it was a trap, not an invitation for him to attack her team mate, but when she saw his hesitation she just rolled her eyes. And then severed Nadaru's head herself.

Hiei's eyes followed the male wind demon's head as it slipped from his neck, hit the ground and settled, and then he raised his crimson orbs to look to Wren. She'd clearly lost her mind, lost her sentimentalism, or lost patience for her partner's uselessness.

Whatever she'd lost, Hiei wasn't about to question a good thing and again leapt for her. Directly before his sword moved to cut her head off, same as she had to her own teammate, Hiei sensed a fourth presence again, as he had when Nadaru was alive. The decapitated demon was still quite dead, and there were no new demons in the ring.

Hiei's eyes widened slightly when he realized that two separate energies were inside of Wren—Nadaru's spirit had been absorbed into her body. '_They have new…'advantages.'_' This was probably what Mukuro meant, Hiei realized with a scowl, knowing before she did that Wren would dodge his attack easily. With the power and agility of two demons, she'd be more formidable than she already had been. Hiei rolled his eyes and stopped where he was, watching Wren also stand still where she had ran to when she evaded his attack.

"At a loss?" she suggested, smirking again.

That smirk was really beginning to piss him off.

Wren suddenly began leaning exaggeratedly to the side, as if she were about to fall over, and then she was gone from her spot across the ring. Hiei's eyes flashed from side to side, but he could not sense the demoness, let alone see her. And then, just as he did feel her presence once more, he also felt an energy-emitting fist slam onto his back. He didn't bother turning—if he had, Wren would have been gone in the next second all the same.

Hiei watched for about twenty seconds as Wren disappeared and reappeared in several places around the ring, and he scowled all the time. Then he heard an outcry from Kurama, and immediately went to the fox. Hiei didn't see any new wound, but Kurama was wincing anyway and holding his shoulder.

"Minor injury," the fox muttered, opening one eye and looking to the fire demon beside him. "But all the same," he continued with a small smile, "I certainly hope she refrains from doing it again."

"She will," Hiei growled, glaring sideways as Wren appeared again nearby. He shot toward her, but she was gone before he could attack her. Thinking back to the other times she'd teleported, he guessed her next placement and went there. Sure enough, within seconds she materialized before his eyes, but again she quickly disappeared and he was unable to offer any attack. He was ready with his sword raised when she appeared again, having again assumed where she'd be next, and he swung his katana downward across her back.

In her distraction, she was unable to teleport again, and stumbled forward. Taking advantage of the situation, Hiei tore off his white bandanna and reverted to the green-skinned, multi-eyed demon form he hadn't used since he fought with Yusuke for the first time.

Kurama was amazed at the difference in energy from the last time he'd seen that form—Hiei's normal energy was impressive in itself, but this…? He certainly didn't want to fight the fire demon himself any time soon and opted to stay on his good side.

Immediately, Wren's body was trapped by several large, shimmering red rings wrapped around her, and she swore once in demon, then cried, "You _bastard_!"

"Not so easy to escape these, is it?" Hiei asked, finally imitating her earlier smirk as he watched the demoness before him squirm within his jagan tie curse that he had also used on Yusuke in their first fight.

"Go to hell," she mumbled weakly, her voice already lacking vigor as Hiei used the crimson energy rings to constrict around her body and sap her energy from her.

"You know _nothing_ of hell," Hiei spat back, and Wren cried out as the tie curse again tightened around her.

She coughed several times before she was able to respond. "And I suppose you do?"

His eyes lacking the rage they'd held second earlier when he had spoke before Wren, Hiei said, "I _am_ hell," as he wrenched his arm sideways, and with the movement the rings slashed through Wren's body and separated it into several different sections. He knew she would not be able to heal herself from that, and turned back to Kurama. "…I hope you know it would have been much more convenient if you just hadn't bothered coming along for the fight."

Kurama smiled weakly. "I apologize for that."

"Hn."

Kurama noticed for the first time as he forced himself to stand and follow Hiei (Who had reverted to his normal form) back to the arena that Chichiro was no longer watching them. His eyes searched for her around the other sections of the inside ring, but as soon as he noted her absence he knew it would be futile to look for her. She was probably either in her room or out in the woods again.

Koenma was standing beside the archway that led to the hallway, and he congratulated Hiei as he walked by, not seeming surprised or effected by the fact that the fire demon completely ignored him and headed past him without a word or 'hn'. The prince of the spirit world turned to Kurama and said, "Well, you didn't do too much, but good fight all the same. Keep winning, or we're screwed."

Kurama thought to say 'So I've been told,' but settled instead on responding, "I'm aware of that. Have you seen Chichiro?"

"She went to her room. Seemed pissy about something."

Kurama raised his eyebrows, though he wasn't sure if it was from his wonder at what Chichiro was angry about or that Koenma had said 'pissy'. "Thanks."

Sure enough, Chichiro was sitting on her bed, one leg crossed over her other leg, which was faced upward in a v-shape pulled close to her body. She smiled when she saw Kurama, though it didn't reach her eyes; even if she still seemed peeved about something, whatever annoyance she'd felt earlier had simmered down. "Hey."

Kurama returned the smile. "Hey."

"I assume you won, then?"

"Hiei did, really," Kurama admitted. "He killed both of our opponents."

"Greedy bastard," Chichiro commented without true venom, and she never lost her grin.

Jokingly, Kurama agreed, "Indeed." Then he asked almost sheepishly, "I don't suppose you'd know how to bandage back wounds, would you?"


	7. The Past

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

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Chapter 7—The Past

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When the glow from her hand faded, Chichiro withdrew her palm from its place close to Kurama's back and finished tying the bandage around him. "Better?" she asked.

"Much." Kurama looked back to her with a smile. "I didn't know you had healing powers."

Chichiro grinned sheepishly. "I don't think they're quite developed enough to be called 'powers'. More like…amateur attempts that sometimes help."

Kurama snickered. "Come, now, you aren't giving yourself enough credit. My back hardly hurts at all."

"And that, children," Chichiro said to an invisible audience as she gently punched his arm without any true force, "is what we call flattery, and it's looked down upon because people often want something afterward that the one they're flattering was beforehand unwilling to give."

Kurama laughed at that, and apologized with humor in his voice as he reached over for his shirt, which he gingerly slid around his arms and buttoned in front of him when he was satisfied that it was loose enough around his back. "You know," the fox commented, "Hiei's going to kill me if I pull something like that again."

Chichiro decided to play clueless. "Pull what?"

"If I'm that useless in our next battle."

The fox demoness behind him shoved him down sideways onto the bed, then stepped over him and grumbled, "Don't be stupid."

Blinking, Kurama said, "I was joking."

"Hn," was Chichiro humorously Hiei-like response, and she said, "I have a lot of pent-up energy, so I'm going to go amuse myself by slamming Hiei's face into a rock or something." She gave him a cheery, out-of-place grin and said, "Toodles!"

Before she left, Kurama quoted, "'Toodles'?"

Seeming semi-flustered, Chichiro asked, "Did I use that wrong? I'm not entirely sure what it means, but Botan said it a week or two back and it seemed like a fun word…"

Again, Kurama laughed. "No, that was correct. No worries."

Chichiro smiled at him again, uncertain of what to say, and then she simply waved and disappeared from the doorway.

Kurama stared after her for a long while, then sighed once and looked for his bag, feeling around on top of his mattress for an uncomfortable lump. When his hand rested on one, he reached beneath his bed and snagged hold of his bag, dragging it forth and fishing through it. He only had one book left, but he decided to read it now and sacrifice his last resource to chase away boredom all the same. The rounds of the tournament should begin to go quicker soon, now that the number of teams was dwindling, and he wouldn't have much use to read soon anyway.

--

As soon as Chichiro arrived in the normal sparring-ground, a clearing near the brook in the woods, she was greeted by Hiei's sword. "Not right now," she muttered to Hiei, blocking with her quickly-summoned light and wind sword.

"Did I ask you if you _wanted_ to?" Hiei replied, not letting up on his attacks. His sword aimed for her still-healing wounded shoulder, and it slashed the burn injury open.

Chichiro cried out, setting her right hand over the new gash. "You _jerk!_" She again summoned her sword, this time in her dominant right hand; she had only used her left before because she really _wasn't_ in the mood to spar despite what she'd said to Kurama and had been lazy. At least she hadn't been in the mood then—now he'd pissed her off. Her shoulder still hurt rather badly even without the new sword wound, and Hiei's sword had made her wince when it made contact with it. Something had flickered in his eyes when it had, but it couldn't be called concern; rather, maybe he had thought it would be in bad taste if he attacked her shoulder again when it was already her disadvantage.

Their skirmish was short-lived. Chichiro, although angry at Hiei's move, didn't seem to have much vigor for fighting. Hiei hadn't felt like respecting her wishes, but without enthusiasm on her end it was boring and he wasn't getting any true training experience sparring her. They both pulled up a few minutes into it and decided to leave it for later without ever saying a word to one another.

The fire demon, having no interest in Chichiro besides using her as a moving punching bag, began to leave, but he stopped all the same when the fox demoness said, "Hiei." She was surprised he actually halted where he stood, but she didn't waste his patience and asked, "Do you consider us friends?"

Hiei glanced back at her, snorting. "What kind of question is that?"

"Well?"

"Of course not," he responded immediately, lacking any hesitation to even consider the question.

Chichiro smirked. "Good. I didn't want you to get the wrong idea from this. The sparring, I mean."

"It seems like _you're_ the one getting the wrong idea if you even considered the thought before asking me," Hiei muttered back flatly, glaring at her briefly before he again turned to walk away.

Chichiro growled to herself but didn't say anything, and when the fire demon was gone she pivoted where she stood and headed for the brook. When her feet were only a few inches away from the water, she crouched down and dipped her right hand into it, raising it cupped to splash a bit of the moisture onto her shoulder. It stung, but she didn't flinch this time as she had when Hiei had initially attacked. A second splash wet her arm to get rid of the trail of blood running down it, and she scrubbed vigorously for a moment to relieve her skin of a small amount of dried blood around her elbow.

Settling back onto the ground, her eyes lifted to the sky. '_Do you consider us friends_?' What a stupid question. Of course Hiei of all people wouldn't even think of friendship between them, let alone actually consider her his friend. Hell, he barely considered her an ally, she figured.

Quietly, she began to sing the song that she knew that Hiei had recognized when it passed through her mind a few days back. She had felt his presence within her mind, but ignored it, as she knew he would be unable to delve deep into her memories or anything of true importance, even with how powerful his jagan was. "_Honto ni sukidata anata ya inai_

_Hajimete no koi todomatta._

_Konya wa yume ni egao no mama de dete konaide yo ne_."

From behind her, she heard someone comment, "I didn't know that you knew Japanese."

Chichiro looked behind her and welcomed Kurama with a smile. "Hey, there."

They had been speaking English and Demon since Chichiro arrived, as Koenma had informed both Hiei and Kurama that Chichiro wasn't too familiar with Japanese. Hiei hadn't complained, as Demon was the main language he used anyway (He still used Japanese quite a bit around Chichiro, just because her confusion amused him and he enjoyed seeing her flounder attempting to comprehend what he'd said.), but Kurama hadn't used that tongue actively for several years and he generally used English.

"I'm not following you, I swear," Kurama assured her, as if she'd accused him. "I didn't know you'd be here. I had thought you were sparring with Hiei elsewhere."

"Nah. I got sick of him too quick." Chichiro grinned, then jested, "And I'm glad you cleared that up. I was beginning to think I had my own fox-boy stalker."

Kurama chuckled, then asked rhetorically, "How is it that I always seem to earn that nickname?"

"Fox-boy, or stalker?"

Kurama laughed, wondering if Chichiro's question had been serious. "Fox-boy. I honestly can't recall ever being called 'stalker' before now."

The fox demoness's smile wasn't reaching her eyes, but one slid across her lips all the same. "I should hope so."

"Something's wrong," Kurama noticed, hoping she didn't mind him pointing it out.

Chichiro looked sideways and away from him again, and said, "No, I'm just annoyed with Hiei."

"And this is new?"

"Hn, just this _kind_ of annoyance is. He's so…God-damned anti-social."

Kurama raised his eyebrows. "And how is _that _new?"

Chichiro just shrugged. Finally heading backward in the conversation to answer what he'd said before, she said, "I know a little Japanese. Basics. And I know the translation of the song I was just singing. I've known that one since I was a kid."

"You're quite a good singer."

Chichiro grinned gratefully at him, but seemed uncomfortable at the praise. "I guess." She stood, then. "Alright!" she said, as if she were about to give him a lecture. "We have to find something to do!"

Kurama blinked at her, then asked, "And what do you suggest?"

Chichiro dropped her arm from the mockingly heroic pose she'd struck, then said in a clueless manner, "Well, if I knew what we should do, I wouldn't have said we should _find_ something."

"…Ah. Right." Sometimes Kurama had to wonder about Chichiro. Half the time she was hyper as ever and happy like she didn't have a care in the world, and then the other half of the time her personality split between quiet, sad or angry. Her emotions were all over the place, and she was just as hard to understand as Hiei, though for a much different reason. And she certainly wasn't so…dark and mysterious, Kurama supposed was the best way to describe Hiei, and he snickered at the thought.

"No laughing!" Chichiro cried suddenly, and if it hadn't been for the amusement in her eyes, Kurama would have thought she wasn't joking. "This is a serious matter! The evil mastermind of boredom must be eliminated, and its only weakness is when its adversaries have something to occupy themselves with!"

"I apologize," Kurama responded, saluting her and feeling goofy, though not minding the sense. "What is the plan?"

"Follow me!" she called loudly, motioning with her arm as she stalked off toward the stadium, then began to sing in what seemed to be a faking singing voice, as it didn't sound _nearly_ as pretty as it had when she'd sang before, "_Ohhhh, we're off to kill the boredom, the horrible boredom of_—" She cut off when she could find no suitable word with only a single syllable, then opted to just finish with what the tune suggested and said, "—_Oz!_"

Kurama shook his head in wonder, pondering when she'd seen the Wizard of Oz, but followed her all the same on her completely pointless quest.

--

"Honto ni sukidata anata ya inai

Hajimete no koi todomatta.

Konya wa yume ni egao no mama de dete konaide yo ne

Saikouno serifu kuchi ni desugite

Komatteta anata

Saigo no serifu kuchi ni shitasugu kadou nanoni kuchi zuke

Kuchibiru ni dake."

_The song had no inspiration or emotional meaning to her, at least not yet. She had not lost her love, as the first few lines suggested: '_You aren't here, the one I really love; Tonight in my dreams, a smiling you doesn't appear; My first love met a dead end_.' All the same, Chichiro felt tears in her eyes and on her cheeks, and causing a hardly-noticed uncomfortable feeling on her chin and the crook of her nose as the tears lingered on her skin. Of course, this was for a very different reason, which she knew to be two bodies strewn on the ground outside the door of the room she was currently in, their throats slit and their dead eyes wide._

_She was huddled in a corner, pressed against the wall, her legs pulled to her chest. She felt no fear despite her own impending death hanging above her like a puff of fog, and really, also despite her tears and the trembling of her body, she didn't feel much of anything. Though not dead like her parents, her own eyes stared blankly ahead like theirs, focused on the floor. And the black boots of the one who had taken the lives of her family. She hadn't bothered looking to his face previously, but now she looked up into the young face of a red-eyed boy, a demon like herself and not too much older than herself. Perhaps fifty or one-hundred years older; she was already just over one-hundred herself, but her body made her seem to be fifteen at most._

_Chichiro could tell immediately by this boy's stature—which was surprisingly short—his sword, his piercing crimson eyes, his strange black hair and white starburst within it, and his entrancing tear gem that hung in plain view around his neck that he was the assassin she'd heard so much of lately about demon world. His reputation had been sparked a few months before and had since begun to grow around suspicions, rumors, gossip and fairy-tale nightmares to spook younger demons such as herself with. Still, she had long since realized that she would die, and did not fear his killing stroke and did not fear him as said before. That didn't change the fact that she had to force herself to speak, and when she did, she only asked a fairly out-of-place question: "What's your name?"_

_His sword twitched, though she supposed it was only because his hand had first. The assassin seemed surprised at the question. "What?"_

"_What's your name?" she repeated, not changing her tone at all._

"_That isn't important."_

"_Consider it my last wish, if you have any decency or feel any obligation to carry it out," Chichiro suggested. When he said nothing and did not move to kill her, she implored, "I just want to know your name."_

_The boy looked to almost size her up as he decided whether or not to answer her request. Finally, "…Hiei."_

_She smiled at that, though it did not reach her eyes. "Well, I've heard a lot about you, Hiei, just never your name. You have a fearsome reputation."_

_Apparently impatient with her speaking, he growled, "Silence."_

_She obeyed, and looked to his sword as he raised it. He did not grip it with his other hand, though, and his right arm did not move besides bringing the sword vertical._

_Curious, she went against what he'd said and asked, "What is it? You've killed my family. Surely you can kill me."_

_She knew immediately why he hadn't moved to kill her simply by the expression within his eyes. There was no fun or enjoyment to be had killing someone who was willing to die without fighting. He relished murder, which she supposed was why he had become an assassin, but only when the quarry ran or fought back against him. She also knew then that she was not to die that day._

"_Hn. You aren't worth my time." Turning, she saw movement that hinted that he had leapt toward the window, but his form was gone in a black flicker, and she could not tell where he had gone._

_She stared at the place where his feet had stood blankly for several minutes without moving. And then she crumbled sideways onto the ground, curling her arms around herself and allowing herself to sob._

Several hundred years later, and looking only ten years older, Chichiro opened her eyes and cuffed away the hint of a tear welling in her left eye, giving a heavy sigh.

Kurama passed her room and called in as he walked by without slowing, "The next round is starting. You should come to the ring."'

She looked to the now-empty doorway for some time before she finally stood. She caught sight of Hiei as he also walked by her doorway, though predictably he ignored her entirely, and she felt hate swirl within her again. _You've changed since then,_ she noticed without hatred and without optimism. _Not really for better or for worse. But you're different, now._

Then she heard Koenma's semi-muffled call from down the hallway, "Chichiro, come on! The round is going to start whether you're here or not!"

She stood, pushing Hiei out of her mind, and then she wearily headed for the doorway and down to her next fight.


	8. Seeds of Sentimentalism

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 8—Seeds of Sentimentalism

--

"I hope you know I'm fighting," Chichiro said to Kurama as she walked out into the arena, ignoring Hiei entirely as she figured he had already settled that he was fighting this round.

"It's only fair that you do," the fox agreed. "I took the last fight."

Chichiro hadn't assumed that he'd give in so easily, and she blinked at him curiously and then shrugged and said simply, "Yeah." Looking to Hiei, or rather glaring, she growled, "What are you waiting for? You were here long before—" He was suddenly in the ring, looking ahead, halfway facing away from her, and Chichiro felt herself seethe. "Hey! I was talking to you, jack-ass!"

Kurama considered coming to Hiei's defense in saying that the fire demon was only satisfying what Chichiro had been about to lecture him on, but he decided against it and watched as she sprang up to join her teammate facing their new opponents.

As the voice on the loudspeaker again asked for names, Chichiro was tempted to rush across the ring and smack her opponent senseless for again speaking first, but she controlled herself as a golden-haired, human-like, fairly tall demon male said, "Nedesco." _Pretty boy_, Chichiro thought on first sight.

Following his lead, his partner said, "Marcella." She was a red-haired, golden-eyed dog demoness, short and pretty. _Prissy and arrogant_, Chichiro again criticized, but then she simply announced her own name.

Predictably, Hiei only 'hn'ed again, Kurama mentally sweat-dropped, Chichiro sighed, and then she grumbled, "His name's Hiei."

"BEGIN!"

To Chichiro's minor surprise, by the way that the two on the opposing team moved, they planned to work together just like the last two contenders that Hiei and Kurama fought. Before the last two battles, they had just chosen a single opponent on the opposite team and stuck with them unless their teammate was killed, but now they were working together. Chichiro figured that meant that she and Hiei would have to work together. She didn't fancy the idea much, and by the looks of his solo movements, he didn't either, and so Chichiro simply decided to go after Marcella first.

That plan was somewhat hindered when Nedesco leapt for her with his spear raised, and she was forced to block that attack with her light and wind sword rather than attack the dog demoness. She dipped her right hand out of holding the sword, summoning pure energy into her palm and pressing it against the male demon's side. She didn't have the time to watch his body fly back from the attack, as Marcella came at her from behind and stabbed upward with a hook-like weapon. The base of it was connected to her fingers, and the thin, pole-like blades surfaced near her knuckles between her fingers; said blades dug into Chichiro's back and dragged upward, ripping flesh with the movement, but as the fox demoness spun to counter attack, a black fire assault from Hiei blasted the dog demoness backward and away from Chichiro.

Hiei glared briefly at Chichiro as she glowered back at him, not seeming in the least grateful that he'd saved her ass, and he couldn't help but feel pleased that Marcella had at least wounded her. She was fairly much worthless as a comrade in Hiei's eyes, for although she could match him well enough in spars, she was always getting wounded. As Hiei felt Nedesco's sword slash across his side, he figured that he could pretend he wasn't being a hypocrite if he added that Chichiro usually paid much too much attention to her injuries.

Marcella's attempted attack—attempted because Chichiro slashed her sword into the dog demoness's upper arm and interrupted—broke through his thoughts and forced him to focus on the battle again. Once again, the two black-haired demons glared at one another. Hiei was fully aware that Chichiro likely had not wounded Marcella, who had landed at an awkward angle after receiving said wound, to save him but rather to take his opponent from him out of spite. Again, Hiei deemed it necessary to linger on how pointless having her as a partner was. She was as immature as she was useless.

Turning as he sensed Nedesco, Hiei blocked the demon's spear as it was thrust toward him, knocking it aside and sliding his katana along the pole and toward the demon holding it. His blade connected with flesh, and in the next second Nedesco was sent flying across the ring, sailing straight into the irritatingly loud onlookers, and he figured Nedesco was down for the count.

As Hiei looked to Marcella to see if Chichiro had finished her yet, Chichiro's eyes shifted sideways to meet his just as he noticed their dog demoness opponent heading for him, brandishing her metallic claws. "Bastard!" she screeched, her voice proving to be more of an annoyance than her attack; her nekode claws slashed across his side, but with a simple flick of his wrist, his katana severed the tops of the weapon. It slipped from her fingers, and he briefly thought he'd seen her run her actual claws along a smooth, black stone before she tried again to injure him; the stone had hung around her belt the entire match, but he hadn't really paid attention to it until now. Her claws, now covered just the slightest bit with a blackish powder that quickly became a liquid, barely grazed his side, but the four identical slash wounds still made him flinch. She was simple enough to finish off, however—when she made the attempt to attack from behind, an amateur move when he was solely focused on her, he only had to yank his elbow backward and crash it into her brow—and so he was easily able to inspect the shallow cuts and figure out exactly why such a minor wound had made him wince.

Chichiro was at his side quickly enough. "Are you—?"

"I'm fine, no thanks to you," Hiei snapped, averting his cold crimson gaze toward her. "I thought you could handle such an easy opponent without my help. Had you held her where you were—or better yet killed her—then you wouldn't even have to ask if I'm okay."

"How do you know that's what I'd ask?" Chichiro grumbled back. "You interrupted me." Her tone made it obvious that it had indeed been what she intended to ask. She still didn't bother apologizing. After Hiei's normal response of 'Hn', she sighed lightly, running a hand through her hair and just past one of her furry, blue fox ears, her eyes focused on his wound. "So, what did she get you with?" Chichiro asked in a casual tone, or at least an attempted one. "That liquid on the ends of her claws can't have been normal."

Hiei glared sideways at her, wondering how he ever ended up with such an incompetent partner, and then began to say 'I know', but at 'I' he could already feel his consciousness slipping away from him, and with a muffled groan, his eyes rolled back and he crumbled to the ground.

--

"Well?" Chichiro demanded, her fiery glare riveted on Kurama. "What was it?"

"Poison," the fox demon responded.

He planned on elaborating, but Chichiro raged before he could say anything, "_Poison_? Well, then how are you so damn _calm_?!"

He uttered a low sigh, forcing himself to at least look patient. "Had Marcella gotten a larger amount on her claws or had she given Hiei a more severe wound, he may have been in trouble. But I recognize this poison—" He didn't bother adding that he and his comrades had used it against enemies in his days as Yoko, as Kurama figured Chichiro wouldn't appreciate that sort of comment at the moment. "—and I know from experience that he will only be unconscious for a day or two at most." He shrugged lightly. "I doubt Marcella was very skilled with using this, or she would have known what the effect was."

Chichiro glanced over at Hiei; he hadn't so much as twitched since they had taken him back to his small, cold, undignified room that was identical to their own. "…Hn."

Noting the skeptic tone in her muttered response and the lingering worry on her face, he said, "He'll be fine, I assure you. Really, I'm quite surprised you care."

"Care about what?" Chichiro asked distractedly. "That he was poisoned and collapsed? Yeah, sorry I actually care about the welfare of my teammate."

Kurama smiled lightly at her, though her eyes were still on Hiei and she didn't catch it. "I didn't mean that. I was worried for him too before I recognized the poison. It's just that you two really don't seem to fancy each other much and your sudden concern is a bit…odd."

"Jealous?" Chichiro muttered, not entirely kindly, and for a moment Kurama thought he had imagined it, but her flat expression gave him no such relief.

"Of course not," he responded, looking at her queerly. Why was she so uptight about Hiei's injury? Better yet, why did she care in the first place, after being so cold and cruel-seeming to him as of yet? Hiei had certainly been no better to her.

She only sighed, leaning forward onto her hand, which was propped by her elbow resting on her knee. She and Kurama were sitting on either side of the irritatingly small bed, atop the railing at the ends. Chichiro sat with one of her legs draped over the side, resting on the ground. Her expression was fairly vacant at this point.

Echoing her sigh, Kurama offered a single last glance toward both Chichiro and Hiei before he stood and slipped from the room, unnoticed.

--

"Chichiro."

Rubbing at an eye, Chichiro attempted to smile brightly at Kurama, but she seemed a bit too weary to be any kind of cheerful. "Yeah?"

"We have another fight in a few hours. You know that we're the only ones who can fight right now—"

"I'm not fighting," was Chichiro's simple interruption. Her eyes rested once again on Hiei, and she offered no further word.

"…I'm sorry?" Kurama stared at her a moment unblinkingly before he quirked an eyebrow and managed to speak again. "We don't really have a choice, you do realize?"

"I said I'm _not_ fighting." Her voice and tone were the only things that had changed—they was harder, and seemingly a warning. "Not until Hiei at least wakes up."

Again with the surprising sentimentalism. Kurama, for the life of him, could not understand where it was coming from after she and Hiei had been so cold toward one another. "I understand your worry, but as I've promised before, he'll wake up and be quite alright."

"Funny, isn't it?" Chichiro murmured, glaring sideways at Kurama where he stood in the doorway, though she did not move her head and only glowered from the corner of her eye. "The one who can say without hesitation that she hates him is the one who worries and not his closest ally and friend."

Kurama surprised himself by grumbling a low, exasperated growl that was completely unlike him. "Chichiro, please. There is no reason to be worried—"

"He could have died!" Chichiro spat, standing abruptly. As she continued, her venomous tone was just as rabid-seeming, though softer. "And he made it damn clear it was my fault he was injured, so if he'd died…" She didn't bother finishing and sat down as quickly as she'd stood, her countenance relaxing into a bland expression. As if she'd never raised her voice, she repeated quietly, "I'm not fighting."

Blinking once, Kurama retreated at least until he found out whether he could persuade the other team to wait or not.

--

His vision was blurry at best when he finally opened his eyes. His entire body was sore and stiff, he could tell he hadn't moved for a while, he was in a foul mood, and holy _hell_ was it bright in the God-damn room. Lifting a hand to his forehead, Hiei slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, ignoring the fact that his limb had appeared to be a formless blob like the rest of the objects in his line of sight, currently.

"You're finally awake," he heard Kurama notice aloud.

"Your keen sense of observation never ceases to amaze me, fox." He had a headache, too. Bloody grand.

Kurama gave a short 'heh' before he spoke, the slightest of smiles on his face. "I need to give you a new bandage, you know. You must have torn something open when you sat up."

Hiei considered growling a defiant 'I don't need your help', but truth be told, with his vision so blurry it would have been a lie. He figured it must have been a side-effect of whatever had been on the ends of Marcella's claws, same as the obnoxious wooziness, though perhaps that was just brought on from the swimming effect of his vision.

Kurama glanced backward as Chichiro appeared in the doorway, having gone off to fetch new bandages just in case. _Convenient timing,_ the fox noted with mild amusement.

Hiei's eyes moved to the doorway as well, though he could make out little and had it not been for her scent, he wouldn't have been able to tell her apart from Koenma in his teenage form thanks to their similar heights. Although he couldn't see the fox's expression, Kurama wore the same surprised look Hiei did when he felt Chichiro's arms around him. Staring ahead with his currently nearly sightless eyes, it didn't take him long to realize it wasn't even close to her normal hostile gesture, but rather a…hug? Hiei seemed to be battling himself between allowing it, shoving her away or running her through with his sword. Before he could make up his mind, Chichiro pulled away and refused to make eye contact as she trotted toward the door. Turning back, she appeared to feel awkward about it, but her voice was arrogant and cold as ever when she grumbled, "Don't ever do that again. Or I'll kill you myself." Then she chucked the bandages to Kurama, averting her eyes to the hall even before she moved to leave.

Hiei and Kurama watched her go, and then Hiei motioned to the door, his mouth slightly agape, though he said nothing. Kurama wondered with amusement if he could say anything in response to that, and simply moved to re-bandage his friend.

"…What the hell was that?" Hiei asked, not seeming to notice in the least the mild pain when Kurama wrapped the new bandages around his torso.

"Beats me," Kurama responded in a rather relaxed way, quite unlike him. "You know," he commented, sounding amused, "she was rather obsessive in thinking that you needed to be watched constantly. It was lucky for us that the other team wanted our blood, or we would have had to have thrown the fight. She refused to leave unless I was going to be in here with you while she was gone, and of course that means she refused to leave long enough to try to win a round."

Hiei glanced briefly at Kurama before his unfocused gaze flittered back to the blanket on his bed, and the fox realized for the first time that he probably still couldn't see very well. "She was actually worried?" the fire demon wondered aloud. "I can't imagine why."

The fox smiled lightly, leaning back when he finished with the bandage. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been bed-ridden and unconscious for the past few days, I suppose from some sort of poison," Hiei began in a sour tone. "I was just hugged by my daily irritant for reasons I can't begin to fathom; and I have an annoying throb on my side, lingering effect of the scratch a low-level demoness was somehow able to leave on me. You're smart enough, you do the math."

Kurama grinned lightly at the sarcastic fire demon's response. "I guess you're feeling better."

"…Hn." Hiei lifted his arm and swiped his hand in front of his own face a few times, then grumbled, "How long will this last?"

"So you're having trouble seeing?" Kurama suggested, not waiting for a response before he answered, "It's hard to say. It can't last much longer, with how little of the poison Marcella was successful in transferring to your body."

Hiei sighed heavily. "How annoying." Glaring in Kurama's general direction, he growled, "How long was I out?"

"Less than two days. Just under, actually, by a few hours. It's pretty late." He chuckled. "Chichiro hasn't let me get much sleep, with her persistent worrying."

"Then go sleep now, idiot fox," Hiei responded flatly. "But before you do, you said she nearly made us throw our fight but you somehow talked our opponents into waiting?" At Kurama's agreeing reply, he continued, "When will we fight, then?"

"As soon as Chichiro's willing, she and I will fight." The fox demon shrugged. "I would assume she'd be willing to any time since you're awake, but I'm not now." He stretched and stood, deciding to listen to Hiei and try to get some shut eye before they fought. "Wake me in a few hours if I sleep too long, will you?"

"If I can see well enough to," the fire demon muttered back.

"Well, you could use your jagan if need be, but I doubt it." At Hiei's short but sadistic laugh, he wondered if mentioning the jagan was such a good idea. "I'll try to be up in time." And then he left for his own room without bothering to wait for a reply.


	9. The Second Form

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 9—The Second Form

--

A low, irritable sigh spilled Hiei's lips as he sprang tree-to-tree in the darkness of early morning. The sun had yet to peek over the forest and attempt persistently to blind him, though he figured it would be less than an hour before its reddish glow showed on the horizon. Crimson eyes scanning the terra before him as he thrust upward again strongly with his legs, he saw no movement to hint that he was near the one he sought. Annoyed, he figured that Chichiro had suppressed her energy to avoid tracking, and unfortunately chose to do so directly before her and Kurama's battle was to commence.

Sailing downward toward a sturdy branch as he spotted a form below him, his feet made little sound as they planted themselves lightly down onto the tree.

Chichiro lay quite oddly in the center of a small clearing, the branches and leaves around her looking to have been swept aside quickly—likely just by a swish of hands—beforehand. Her eyes were shut, her body unmoving, and for a moment Hiei debated between mild elation at the thought that his annoyance was dead or anger that she had kicked it when he was still healing, forcing him to fight. But as her chest rose with breath, he realized she was quite alive, whether that was a good thing or not.

Springing silently off the branch and landing about seven yards away from the ends of her limp feet, he watched her a long moment, waiting for so much as a twitch. Nothing of the sort came for over a minute, nor did a sound, word or glance from her. He began to wonder if she was even conscious and if he should approach her or search for some sort of wound or attacker; of course, she could have just been deep in slumber, but he hoped she was not quite _that_ useless.

"I'm not asleep," Chichiro said finally, not opening her eyes. She sensed Hiei start when she spoke, but she continued in a calm, monotonous tone, "And whether I was or wasn't, you don't have the right to stare."

"Ah, sorry," he responded, and though his tone was genuine, she figured easily enough that it was nothing of the sort. "I failed to recall that only_ you _are allowed that luxury."

'_Luxury'? _Chichiro's mind wondered. She ignored it, though, and she mumbled softly, "It's the corpse pose."

"…Corpse pose," he echoed flatly.

"It's called yoga, smart ass," she continued on, finally sitting up. "What do you want?"

"Yoga is a human art, what would you want with it?" Hiei wondered aloud, but he didn't allow her to reply and immediately continued, "The round is beginning soon. Don't tell me you've forgotten."

"Only if it was intentional," Chichiro muttered back, closing her eyes as she stood; her gaze returned to the vertically-challenged fire demon before her as she said, "Why didn't Kurama come for me?"

"Kurama isn't quite as fast." Hiei gave her an irritated once-over and grumbled, "But with all this pointless small talk, I'd say he could have already gotten you back to the arena by now."

"Yeah?" The fox demoness disappeared from sight in a flash, and she briefly slowed as she passed Hiei, hissing beside his ear, "Well, then, we'd better get a move on," and then she was gone.

Wordlessly and without showing any of his usual lack of patience, he turned and in a leap was rendered a small black blur to most eyes as he followed her.

--

Although Chichiro wore a flat expression and sarcastically mouthed, 'Please state your names' along with the loudspeaker as it boomed across the stadium, she did not appear annoyed as her actions suggested. She actually seemed uncharacteristically calm, and also uncharacteristically _not_ pissed off after speaking to Hiei. This, however, was not meant to credit the Jaganshi for doing something 'right' by the demoness's standards; no, she was simply still serene-seeming from the lucid effects of the yoga she'd performed. Indeed, Kurama noticed that even her aura had a certain meandering quality to it.

However, being that the familiar, formless voice had (as just mentioned) requested names from the contestants, Kurama raised his voice to name himself.

"Chichiro," the demoness beside him followed.

The first of their opponents, a male demon that appeared to be some variation of wolf demon, called out, "Shu." The navy-haired, gray-eyed fighter didn't notice that his name had earned an amused twitch from Chichiro; his black wolf ears remained forward, eyes focused on the space between Chichiro and Kurama as though he had spied a third opponent there.

His companion, a she-demon also of the wolf kind that appeared to be related to him even though her brunette hair and green eyes did not match his own features, announced herself to be, "Myogie." The pair could have also been mistaken for relatives to Chichiro if one could not tell the difference between wolf and fox appendages, for they shared Chichiro's rare trait of having double tails each; theirs were also black-tipped, but they were gray rather than blue.

But this was not on the blue-eared fox demoness's mind as she stared down her opponents, waiting for Shu's discipline to falter and for him to meet her challenging gaze. Her only concern right then was discovering their weakness, battling her hardest and advancing to the next round. Her time on the sidelines had made her restless, and suddenly she ached for a good, long battle.

"BEGIN!"

Before the last syllable even had time to echo around the walls of the stadium, Chichiro's form had short forward toward Myogie with speed that Kurama had not yet seen her display. After all, she had only used her speed in spars thus far into the tournament, and had only sparred Hiei. Kurama had not seen any of those 'friendly' fights that the two had held.

Kurama didn't have any time to focus on her, though, for Shu also seemed to harbor both impressive speed and the strong desire to fight. With barely enough time to move, Kurama narrowly evaded the wolf demon's fist as it slammed into the ring and shattered the tile of the floor; a small crater in the ground gave Kurama a hint as to the power of the one he faced, a power which he'd previously underestimated simply out of experience.

Although Chichiro had sorely desired to fight the male of their opponents rather than the female, Myogie's form had been turned to Chichiro and had tensed to head for her in the beginning. Unless Kurama needed help with Shu, Chichiro would take what she had in stride and fight the other she-demon instead. She also aimed to make the most of this battle, and rather than waiting as she normally did, she summoned her sword immediately as her body sailed for the female wolf demon.

Chichiro was impressed at her opponent's speed when she unsheathed her own blade quickly enough to block Chichiro's light and wind sword. It was more metallic, though, and not nearly as powerful as the energy weapon it needed to battle against. However, it was strong enough to withhold pressing against the other blade, least for a short time. Myogie didn't seem willing to test out its strength, as she swiped her claws (Which unlike Chichiro's had been lengthened the entire fight; the fox demoness figured that she couldn't sheathe them or lengthen them, as they were only a few inches in length and didn't grow at all when in use or shorten at all when being neglected for other fighting tactics.) at Chichiro's stomach.

Leaping back, the raven-haired demoness easily avoided the attack, but she found herself smirking from the pleasure earned from a good fight as Myogie sprang at her immediately, sword poised and ready to try again to catch Chichiro at a disadvantage.

Kurama wasn't enjoying himself nearly so much with Shu. Not only was he still sore and rather stiff from his back injury, he was also battling confusion; why had Shu and Myogie not decided to work together? This far into the tournament, he would have thought the fighting pairs would all be trying to tag-team as the past few pairs of opponents had. Then again, he realized as he chanced a glance sideways at his own fighting companion, he and Chichiro had not exactly devised a plan that involved working together. Nor had they tried to improvise, though as he noted the expression of pure sadistic delight on Chichiro's face, he figured an attempt at that would be to no avail currently.

Shu didn't appear to have any problem with fighting solo; however, his eyes left Kurama occasionally to check on Myogie, making the kitsune demon assume that they were like the earlier sibling pair and actually cared for one another. When Myogie was caught at a disadvantage, Shu's fighting only slowed as he monitored it long enough to see whether she could get out of it and no longer. He never went to her aid.

Currently, the male wolf demon was using only his claws, as Myogie had in the beginning of the battle. Wolves are a feral sort, and enjoy using their bodies more than weapons. Even at a disadvantage, Myogie was only using her sword to block for the most part and offered few attacks with the blade. As to Shu, Kurama couldn't even see a weapon on him and that likely meant he didn't intend to use one at all.

A thunderous leap sent Shu flying at Kurama head-on, a bold if amateur move, and it snapped the fox out of his thoughts. Leaping backward, he reached behind him and into his red mane of hair, withdrawing the rose he so often used. Another evading leap later, he had had enough time to send demonic energy into the plant, causing it to lengthen and strengthen enough for him to snap it out at Shu.

As they fought, Kurama realized Shu's reasoning for lack of concern for his teammate: though Chichiro was fighting her harshly, he must have had faith in Myogie's ability because she was the stronger of their team. Shu was an impressive fighter, true, but he was no match for someone so skilled as Kurama, even if the fox was wounded.

Human sentiment made him consider allowing the wolf demon live, but he did not desire to appear soft before Kagura; even he didn't care what she thought of him, she had to think him worthy of battling her or she wouldn't give them the chance to. Thus, he had to ignore his experience in the human world and follow his more Yoko-like instincts—he slew Shu quickly with a single snap of his whip, and the wolf demon never had the chance to give a counter attack.

Chichiro's battle was not so unevenly matched. True enough that the fox demoness had caught Myogie at a disadvantage many times, but the wolf opponent was a force to be reckoned with to be sure. She obviously had experience with her claws and her blade, and now, she decided to take a chance to end this fight and lashed out her arm toward Chichiro's throat. The fox demoness dodged, flipping backward, and as soon as she moved for her opponent she realized her mistake. The previous attack made by the wolf had been a fake-out so that Chichiro would counter-attack head on as she tended to; Myogie was reading into her moves and had put everything on the line on her assumption that Chichiro would attack a certain way. Unfortunately, that assumption was correct, and Chichiro was too far into her move to pull back without getting herself slain for certain.

She felt as though her sword was moving in slow motion as she dove for her opponent. The demon before her smirked and lifted her hand, knocking Chichiro's sword aside with ease, having lowered herself into a position to make it nearly impossible not to deflect the attack. In an instant, the other demon's blade rose and stabbed at Chichiro's exposed abdomen. She cried out as she felt it pierce into her stomach, forcing her backward and making her body curl over onto the sword.

For a moment, Kurama's emerald gaze paled with dread, same as his skin, and even the sadistic Hiei's eyes widened as, for the briefest time, they thought their teammate dead.

But then, her eyes flared crimson, her hair billowing above her as the ebony roots of her locks bled out and became a bluish color, similar to Botan's. The crimson glow of her eyes faded slightly enough for it to be visible that the hue of her irises had also changed to red. Her fox ears seemed to shrink into her head, and pointed, elf-like ears poked through her hair at the normal place of human ears. Large, blue wings punched from her back, bat-like in nature and membranous rather than feathered. Even her face shifted somewhat, adopting an almost animalistic undertone as the fangs within her jaw lengthened.

"So," Hiei mused aloud, "then this is her full demon form she so often hides?"

Kurama chanced a glance toward his short, impish comrade. _Full demon form?_ the fox wondered. He had sensed that she'd had a different form and had assumed it would be something fox-like, thus not recognizing this as her full-demon form; yet Hiei acted as though it had been quite obvious. That, and he had been waiting to see it.

The kitsune demon shifted his glance back to Chichiro just in time to see that the zigzag demon marks on her face had shifted; what appeared to be the black shape of a tear formed from the previous marks at the corner of her left eye, and a curved, triangular shape with the point facing away from her eye appeared beneath the same one.

And then, a grin slid along her face, replacing the pained expression, and the glow of her eyes ceased just as her opponent's countenance changed to one of confusion. The fox demoness's hand shot out, snagging the other demon's throat, and as Myogie released the hilt of the sword to grab at Chichiro's hands, the now blue-haired she-demon drew up her opposite elbow and cracked it into the wolf's face. As soon as Myogie's chin swept upward from the blow, Chichiro straightened her arm and dropped her middle and index finger as she did so, digging into the other's eyes. Howling in pain, her opponent's arms flew up to her own face, pawing at her bloody eyes, and Chichiro took the chance to rip the other's blade from her stomach; as soon as she did so, it was as if a sort of plug had been released, and she knew she had one chance to take down her adversary before she lost consciousness. With a single swipe, she removed the other demon's head from her shoulders, and immediately her own legs weakened.

Her hair darkened in a shot, demon marks returning to their former and her eyes—though rolling back and not visible—shifted back to their normal, piercing green. Her wings had been left unused throughout the battle, but she was unable to control whether they were released or not in the shift, and as she collapsed backward she made a small noise of pain as one of the fingers of the membranous wing landed at a strange angle, cracking it in the center. They withdrew into her back as though they had never been in the next second.

"That was _almost_ impressive," Hiei muttered with a smirk, deciding to go ahead of Kurama this time to get to Chichiro. Whether it was curiosity at her transformation or realization that with her second form Chichiro may be of use to their team, Hiei had taken enough interest in her now to check on her welfare.

--

Her eyes were slow to register, but when they did, she was too surprised to react only for a split second as she realized the one propping her body up was Hiei rather than Kurama, although she could see both. Growling, she didn't seem to notice that she was still bleeding, that Hiei had a hand pressed to her side to try to stop it, or that the arm she raised to shove him away from her was on the same side as the puncture wound. Only a wince revealed that she felt anything at all, but all she said was, "Get the fuck off me, jerk," and pushed him back.

He didn't seem bothered or surprised, and only raised his eyebrows briefly in response as she stood. "You know," he commented, "you're still bleeding."

Ignoring him besides noting what he said, she put a hand to her wound (which, thankfully, was more to the side than the center and didn't look life-threatening), drew it back to glare briefly at the blood, and then pressed her palm to it as she walked away from the ring and right past her two teammates.

Kurama looked after her, torn between following or asking Hiei a short series of questions that had entered his mind. He decided on the latter right then, and that he'd do the former when he was done. "You acted like you knew about her second form," he murmured, looking to the fire demon near him.

Hiei stood, having kneeled beside Chichiro, and glared briefly at his bloodied hand before stuffing it in his pocket without further thought, heading for the side of the ring and leaping down. "What of it?"

Kurama followed him. "Well, how did you? And how did you recognize it so easily as her full-demon form?"

"Your senses are failing quite badly, aren't they?" Hiei muttered in response, and Kurama knew well enough that he meant his ability to sense something about a person or demon rather than senses such as sight and hearing.

"I suppose so." Kurama brought a hand to his face, covering his mouth briefly as he thought, and then he voiced, "When did you first realize it?"

"Realize what?" the shorter demon asked disinterestedly, already preoccupied in his own thoughts, which no doubt he regarded far more important than the topic at hand.

Kurama sighed. "Her second form."

"When I fought alongside her in the ring last," the fire demon replied, then glared at Kurama irritably. "If you have any more questions, go ask her." And then he flickered from view, leaving Kurama standing alone in the hallway.

The fox demon sighed lightly, rubbing the back of his neck absently as he leaned against the nearest wall. If Chichiro had been well enough to snap at Hiei rather than accept aid or request it of Kurama, then he figured he didn't need to seek her out. He could sense her ki energy far off, likely in the woods already, and figured he'd just bug her about getting herself bandaged later.

Little did he know, Chichiro had already snatched bandages from her own room (Where she'd hidden a small stash) and had indeed headed for the forest, where she intended to bandage herself. She was not to be left alone, however, for Hiei's interest had not yet faltered and he did not feel so charitable as Kurama and had the intent to harass her.

He waited to seek her out until he knew she had bandaged herself and would acknowledge him, and then he used his jagan to track her to her current location.

She was farther into the woods than he was used to. Though she had not returned to her second form, both of her wings had been released once again, sprouting somewhere between her shoulder blades. The wing that had appeared to be broken when she collapsed was drawn over her shoulder, folded along the upside-down V-shaped bend joint. She was scrutinizing the snap of the wing, rubbing her fingers across the leathery, bloody skin above the broken bone. She released it as he watched, standing, allowing the membranous wing to slide back over her shoulder and fall limp behind her back. Raising it slowly, she flexed it once and flinched noticeably, cursing under her breath as the wound tore open and began to bleed again. Sighing lightly, she sat on the ground once more, lifting the wing halfway and then wrapping her fingers around the frame of it and pulling it the rest of the way over her shoulder.

Lifting her shirt the slightest bit, revealing little more than half of her bandaged abdomen, Chichiro unraveled a foot or two of the wraps and then bit down onto it, tearing it off of the larger section of bandage still around her stomach wound. Dressing her wing quickly, with little care, she then allowed both of them to shrivel and fold into nothingness on her back, leaving no trace that they had ever existed beforehand save for the twin slits through the back of her shirt; had it been a normal top rather than a tube top, there likely would have been holes in it.

She stood then, turning and meeting eyes with Hiei where he stood on a branch about fifty feet off, watching him in surprising hostility-lacking silence for a long moment. "…Hey," she finally muttered, looking down ahead of her again before she turned around and walked forward toward a tree. She pivoted and leaned against it, watching as Hiei approached her.

"How did you acquire that second form?" he asked bluntly, not even responding to her greeting before posing the question that had caused him to seek her out.

She gave a low sigh, crossing her arms and glancing toward the ground. "I'm part pretty much any kind of demon you can think of: Fox, fire, bat, wind, cat—you name it and I'm sure I can find an ancestor that was that breed." Her eyes were only faintly cold when she glared at him and said, "If you can remember the energies of my slaughtered parents, you should know they were mix demons as well. It's not too surprising that I have more than one form."

"Even if you are a mix of demonic races, you should not have a second form." Hiei knew he had made it fairly obvious that he himself was not born from two parents of the same breed, but as long as Chichiro didn't intend to ask, he didn't intend to care. Thinking to his own, multi-eyed form that Chichiro had seen only once, "Such a transformation suggests that you were implanted with the power of the jagan eye."

But the fox demoness before him only smirked. "Only the truly desperate seek such a remedy for their weaknesses. And you didn't see me covered with a half a bajillion eyeballs, did you?" Shrugging, the continued on, "Besides, I am a full fox demon even if I do have a lot of other breeds in my blood; just picked up a few tricks along the way. Can't help that I have a bunch of other demon species in my lineage, can I?"

And then she turned from him, her long legs leading her away from the clearing. As he watched her go with only mild interest, Hiei noted that she had never denied outright that she'd had a jagan implant.

She stopped short as the thought crossed his mind, and then she turned to half-face him. "And about when I first woke up…" She turned to face him fully, now, and mimicked Kurama's earlier action and rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. "Look," she finally said, "I'm not the best at apologies when they matter, but sorry I freaked on you. It's just, I'm not used to waking to find people I dislike holding me, know what I mean?" She was grinning when she said 'people I dislike', and Hiei guessed she hadn't meant for him to take that part of it too seriously. Not that he would have cared even if she had. "And besides, with the whole thing that happened to you after our last battle…" She looked away. "I guess I didn't want us pissed at each other like usual, y'know? It's not worth it over somethin' stupid."

"Like the past?" Hiei replied, his expression genuinely amused, with only a hint of ridicule in it. Chichiro glared at him, but before she could respond, he continued on to reply to her mention of his injury thanks to Marcella. "Kurama said you were worried."

Her glare never faltering, Chichiro replied in an irritated tone, "It wasn't that. I wasn't worried. It was just a guilt thing."

Hiei smirked. "Sure it was."

She seemed to debate on barking some insult at him or yelling to wipe the smirk off his face, but she only grumbled something to herself and turned, once again heading back in the direction of the arena.


	10. Change

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 10—Change

--

For the life of him, Hiei couldn't figure Chichiro's reason to be leaning on the frame of the door to his room. They hadn't spoken since the previous day, when they had shared what he thought was their first ever civil conversation. So when the fox demoness had appeared in his doorway, only offering a two-fingered wave and not so much as a 'hello', he could do little but stare at her until she spoke.

The first thing she said, strangely enough, was her oddly good-natured comment of, "You know I think you're an impertinent bastard, right?"

_What a nice start to a conversation_, Hiei thought to himself, but only offered a shrug in response to Chichiro's words. The she-demon didn't appear angry when she spoke it, so he felt no need to return an insult before she got to the point.

Realizing easily enough that she wasn't going to earn a response standing there waiting for a reply that'd never come, she continued, "Well, I decided yesterday that even though we can't stand one another, we should try and get along better. I mean, we're not gonna see each other after this mission, I figure—Koenma wouldn't be stupid enough to pair us up again, right?"

Hiei had blinked once while she rambled on, not moving from where he was sitting with his arms behind his head and his legs stretched out with one foot draped over the other before him. He still had little idea where this was leading, at least no idea that he was fond of.

With little interest, he noted that Chichiro had changed out of her battle-torn outfit and had put on one that covered more skin than the last time. It was a dark long-sleeved shirt with a circular cut-out at the base of her neck extending halfway down her chest to reveal a necklace and, as only to be expected of one so shameless as her, more skin than Hiei felt necessary. The sleeves of the top were baggy almost like kimono sleeves, and about six inches around each of the elbows had been turned into mesh before it returned to cloth the rest of the way down the arm. The pants were grayish-black as well and nothing spectacular, though as he looked to them he noticed for the first time that she was barefoot and wearing mesh something or another on her feet—socks or stockings, he didn't care; they were uncomfortable-looking and didn't seem well-built for fighting, as her toes were bare and the sock/stocking/garment-that-Hiei-didn't-care-much-about was strapped onto her foot with a thin string between her big toe and the next one over. She also wore a darker black scarf that, like Hiei's own white one, had the ends tucked under so that it looked like a solid loop of fabric.

Chichiro either didn't notice or didn't care about his once-over that had taken in so much information about her outfit change, as she had continued speaking through it. "So anyhow, I decided that we should stop picking on one another, for the most part anyway."

Hiei figured she'd added the last part so that she'd have an excuse to squeeze an insulting nickname for him into their conversations once and a while.

She fell silent for a short while, seeming to expect a response; when she received none, Chichiro cleared up her ramble with, "I mean, we should call a truce." She had headed over to him and she now stuck out her hand toward him, as though a handshake would make it law. "What do you say?"

"I hold no truces," the Jaganshi commented coldly. "It is the coward's way out when he does not wish to face a problem."

"An alliance, then," the she-demon before him suggested, her hand never moving from where it was extended before her.

"We already have one thanks to Koenma. Why do you feel the need to make it 'official' now?"

Chichiro smirked. "Just to be sure you acknowledge it."

Hiei curled his lip at her. This was what he got for acting civil toward her, he figured. "Fine. But don't expect anything of this."

"Anything like what, friendship?" Chichiro replied with an amused grin.

He had no idea what was so funny. He didn't respond to that, glancing distastefully at her hand as though it appeared to him to be crawling with parasites. "Put your hand down. My word should satisfy you well enough." And then, as though fed up with the situation, he moved to stand and was gone before Chichiro could even blink.

The fox demoness looked behind her to see if she could glimpse him in the hall, but he had already gone from the arena before she could even glance backward. She tipped her fingers back to look at the reverse side of her hand, then smirked and shrugged, wheeling around and heading down the cold, concrete entryway and toward the next few rooms in the hall. She didn't stop at her own, and rather headed for Kurama's, leaning on the doorway to his room as she had with Hiei's.

Kurama was squatting down and fishing under his bed for something, but as soon as Chichiro cleared her throat, he turned and smiled at her. "Hello," he offered.

"Hey," she greeted him with a grin. "I realized I haven't harassed you since yesterday, so I figured I should try'n bug you now."

"Better try harder," Kurama replied with a return smile as he stood from where he had crouched by his bed, and he sat down on the uncomfortable, old mattress. "You're not bugging me yet."

A warmth entered Chichiro's eyes and she realized then that she wanted her and Kurama to become close friends; she would bet on him wanting the same thing, and she headed over to join him after she leaned off the door frame and said, "Oh, believe me, you haven't seen anything yet."

--

"What do you mean, the tournament's on hold?" Chichiro growled indignantly, glaring at Kurama. Another day had passed with no fights, and although that was good in that it allowed Chichiro time to heal before the next battles, she didn't seem very enthusiastic with the idea.

Kurama raised his eyebrows at her, blinking once. "You're upset by this?"

"Well, duh," the demoness ranted back, throwing up her arms in a theatric display of her distress. "I can't _stand_ sitting around and doin' nothing! _Ai_!"

While she was cursing to herself and not paying much mind to him, Kurama sighed and drew a hand to his forehead, pressing two fingers just above the bridge of his nose as though Chichiro was causing a headache. "Yes, well," he said finally, "in the last round, one of the contestants blew a hole through the entryway of the arena. Needless to say, that team advanced." After a brief pause while he watched as Chichiro continued to pace, "There are many demons still stranded in there, and the fights can't start again until the audience has been rescued and is ready to observe more battles."

"Yeah, fine," she growled in an ill-tempered manner. "I guess I could see if Hiei wanted to spar…"

"Good luck finding him," Kurama commented. "I haven't seen him all morning."

"Probably chased him off by being nice," Chichiro snarled to herself, then got a devious glint in her eye, quite like the last time she had a bad plan. It wasn't so moronic as to try and raid Koenma's suite this time, but Kurama was still none-too-enthused when she suggested, "_We_ can spar!" The she-demon noted his unenthusiastic expression, and ran to him, grabbing his shoulders. "Come on!" she begged shamelessly, withdrawing her hold on his upper arms and clasping her hands in front of her. "Please…?"

The redhead sighed, running a hand through his hair and then muttering, "Fine. But we're not going to fight like we're trying to kill one another, okay?" But as soon as he said 'Fine', he had been aware of the fact that Chichiro had snagged his wrist and was quickly dragging him off to the woods, not paying much attention at all to his words.

--

Hiei sighed lightly from his perch high on the top wall of the roofless arena, perhaps fifty feet above the last rows of seats. If he knew how to feel any form of compassion for strangers, he'd likely pity any unfortunate demon that had to sit this high up to watch the battles—he had barely been able to see the edge of the far side of the ring when he had been by the seats, let alone the part of it where the fights actually took place.

Swinging the leg he had dangled over the side of the stadium once without even realizing it, he switched his cold, crimson gaze from the busy work of those trying to repair the arena to Kurama and Chichiro as they passed far below him. _Heading for the woods again,_ he noticed. It was as if they were trying to keep their minds off the more serious issues at hand, like the current mission, with how often they went there now.

He considered following just to see what they were up to or ambush Chichiro for his own amusement, but he decided against it and only extended his jagan's power toward them; he only had a loose hold on their minds, and he wasn't concentrating very hard. He aimed only to find out what their intent was and nothing more, to satisfy his curiosity. Then, he'd return to the boring pastime activity of watching gargantuan, brainless demons carry out loads of concrete from the shattered wall of the arena, same as he had been for a few hours now. At least it was quiet.

--

Chichiro thought briefly that as she stopped in the familiar sparring clearing that she could sense Hiei's presence, but when she tried to detect where he was, his energy signal told that he was very far away, off toward the arena. She shrugged and didn't pay any further attention to the sensation, which ceased soon enough anyhow.

This clearing had been the center point and starting point of nearly all of her and Hiei's spars, so she figured it'd be easier to start her practice battle with Kurama here as well.

"You'll have to forgive me," Kurama said as he entered the small, grassy area behind her, "but I haven't sparred in quite some time—how does this work? Are we going to use weapons, or just our hands for close combat?"

Chichiro hadn't really thought about it 'til he voiced it. For the most part, she just followed Hiei's lead for how the spars were to be performed, usually starting out without weapons and summoning her energy sword as the battle became more heated.

Though, from the casual expression on Kurama's face, he didn't aim for a heated battle. Just a friendly spar, something Chichiro certainly had not done yet with Hiei—theirs tended to be more like a submission battle than a spar, and as long as the other did not relent, the fight continued even if one of them was injured. _Well,_ Chichiro thought to herself in resignation, _it's not gonna be like that, but at least it's something to do._

"I don't care," she decided aloud eventually. "You can choose—either works for me."

"Anything goes, then?" the fox suggested.

Chichiro smirked. _Much_ better. "Yeah, that sounds good."

As Kurama had hoped, their fight was slower than a true battle; it was casual-feeling in nature, and even if Kurama lashed his rose whip at Chichiro and she in turn slashed her light and wind sword at him as though they intended each other harm, it felt almost relaxing to both of them. It gave Kurama practice, which he had to admit he needed after so many years without many true fights, and it gave Chichiro a chance to expend some of her pent-up energy.

As they fought, the laid-back manner with which they approached their "spar" was further accented by the fact that they chatted nonchalantly in-between their exchanging of blows.

Kurama had been the first to speak. "So, what was that form you took on during the battle? An automatic response when your life was in danger, or merely a weapon to ensure victory?"

Chichiro smirked as she drew up her blade to block Kurama's weapon as it whizzed toward her. Slashing the end off of it, she dove for him and gave a half-hearted attempt at injuring his shoulder; neither had aimed for vitals the entire time, just to be sure. There was no blood thirst in their fight as there was between Chichiro and Hiei, so they were far more careful. "Now you're starting to sound like that Jaganshi. He was pretty interested in it, too."

Kurama returned the smile, ducking to the side and shooting off in that direction at a quick run. "We can't help it—you sprang that on us quite quickly. We were not prepared."

"Watch it," Chichiro instructed him calmly, sticking out her foot as she ran beside him, tripping Kurama but catching his arm before his body fell sideways. She released him when she was sure he had regained footing. "You're not guarded well enough." Then, without letting him respond to that, she continued back with their previous conversation. "It's not a defense mechanism—I have control over it, least for the most part. It's a form that expends a large amount of energy and one that I can retain only for short times because of that, so I don't use it often. Only when I have to, see."

"Ah." The fox leapt backward a great distance, letting his rose whip rest on the ground as he crossed his hands at the wrists, his index and middle finger poised but the rest of the fingers curled. With a cutting motion, his arms swished to the side and opened toward his sides, and Chichiro sensed a great amount of demon energy had been sent hurtling toward her. Indeed, suddenly there was a swarm of razor-sharp leaves settling into various places in the air as though they had been stuck onto little, invisible shelves. They didn't move.

"So, is this a barrier around you, then?" Chichiro asked, stopping and watching with great interest as Kurama again crossed his hands. "Interesting." A slow smile appeared on her face, then, as she said, "I do think you're showing off, Kurama."

"Just practicing, I assure you," the fox replied, and though his expression was entirely serious beyond the smirk that had formed on it, Chichiro could tell he was pleased with her reaction. "Brace yourself—I know I'm likely not supposed to warn you of oncoming attacks during a spar, but these can be far more dangerous than you know. Best not to take any chances right before the next round."

Chichiro nodded, poised to dodge his attack; she sprang upward as he sent the sharpened leaves out from where they had lingered in front of him, and she spun midair, releasing a cloud of demonic energy that singed any of the little razorblades that put her in immediate danger. Tapping down a short ways off on a thick limb of a tree some two hundred feet from Kurama and a short ways into the woods, she noticed with a blink that his attack was not done—it had followed her and the leaves were still heading for her body. "Nice," she said softly to herself, a single fang showing from behind her lips as she leapt out of the way once again. "Why don't you ever use these tricks in the ring, Kurama?" she called, loudly enough that he'd be able to hear her even as she was retreating away from him. She figured that it was worth a shot to see if the attack lost any power once it was far away from the spot where it had originally been released. She also would have liked to have tested whether or not it failed easier without Kurama nearby, but he had set off at a run to follow her.

"I haven't seen the need to, yet," Kurama replied, voice raised as he called to his comrade from where he was running on the forest floor below Chichiro, who was darting among the branches of the trees still. "Besides, I'd rather save my stronger attacks until I absolutely must use them—I wouldn't want our opponents to have the upper hand knowing our attacks ahead of time. Would you?"

"Not at all," Chichiro replied with a grin. Fed up with running and realizing that no matter how far she went, as long as Kurama was near the little blade-leaves wouldn't lose their effect, she stopped where she stood. Then, waiting until the last possible moment, she sprang into the air, easily a hundred feet or so up, and waited for the leaves to follow her before she expelled another discharge of demonic energy. It was not much like Yusuke's spirit gun, however, and was in fact more like a mist than a singular blast.

"Well done," Kurama complimented warmly.

Chichiro certainly wasn't used to support from those she sparred, but she replied with equal kindness in her voice, "Yeah, the attack was pretty bad-ass while it lasted, though." She tapped down onto the ground before Kurama, debating on continuing their spar or not. It was mainly for experiments of attacks he had not used in a while for Kurama, she could see, so there wasn't much use in doing so. "I'm good for now," she told him, raising her hands in a mock show of surrender, allowing the hilt of her light and wind sword to fade from her hand; the energy returned to her body. "Anyway, good thinkin' on the not-showing-everybody-else-our-attacks thing. I mean, I probably should have waited on using my full-demon form, but hell, I think it was worth it to when I did."

"I would agree," Kurama said with a nod, and Chichiro smiled at him.

"Well, enough of this. We should check on the progress that's been made at the arena. Besides," she added, "I want to see if I can find Hiei, since you told me you hadn't seen him all day. Have to make sure he didn't bail on us."

And even though Kurama knew she didn't think he would have and actually wanted to know where he was, he didn't mention it. He only nodded and followed her as she headed back to the stadium in silence.

--

"Oi!"

Sucking in a deep breath and letting it slide from his lips with more volume than was natural in an exaggerated sigh, Hiei tried to ignore the voice that called up to him. So far, he'd been able to for a little over two minutes. Yet, it was so _unrelenting_ that it was almost cruel. His patience was wearing thin.

Chichiro had a knack for this. Annoying Hiei, that is, and she knew it well as she called up again from her place at the base of the stadium, "You there! I'm talkin' to you, Jaganshi!" She had spotted him as she and Kurama were walking back, and had immediately commenced to harass him after he didn't acknowledge her greeting. Kurama had just gone back to his own room. "Ai! Can you hear me?"

Hiei's head was turned from her, and his posture seemed relaxed enough. Inside, he was seething and plotting the many different ways he could decapitate or incapacitate Chichiro so that she could never bother him again. She was lucky they had adopted the alliance a few days earlier and that he had a sense of honor, else he would have done so already.

He only watched the progress within the ring in silence now, however, and not even his face revealed his mounting irritation. That was what Hiei had a knack for: Ignoring others and acting as though their attempts to annoy him had no effect.

But now she was repeating herself, in a loop, as though it would have more effect. "Oi! You there!" And, oddly, it did.

"_What_?!" he spat down to her finally, turning and glaring down in cold, unconcealed hatred at her persistence. "What do you want?"

But Chichiro just grinned. That horribly annoying kind of grin when she had gotten what she wanted, yet decided not to use it save for further irritation. "Just making sure you could hear me, 's all!" she called up to him. And then, she disappeared into the hallway.

Struck by something between flabbergast and rage, Hiei stared for quite some time at where she had been standing before he uttered a single, "Hn," and turned back around.

Unfortunately for him, Chichiro's amusement in her game had not died down and she was standing before him as he returned to his former position. "Hiya," she said with a large grin.

Not curious in the least how she had gotten up there so fast, Hiei curled his lip at her and decided not to respond.

But right then there was an announcement that saved him from more of her merciless, useless chatter. Far below them, the formless voice called throughout the stadium, "_The next round will commence in ten minutes. Those scheduled to fight next, please come to the ring._"

As it was repeated for those who had not heard it the first time, Hiei stood, drew his arm back in a very nonchalant way, and punched Chichiro full in the face. Watching her spiral in an unorthodox manner down the stairs that she'd climbed to get to him, he felt himself lose a smirk. _Been too long since I had a chance to do that,_ he thought, thoroughly satisfied as he stepped over her twitching form and headed for the ring, too pleased with himself to even notice her as she shot to her feet shouting, "You _bastard!_ What about our truce, huh?!"


	11. The Seventh Battle

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 11—The Seventh Battle

--

It seemed that by the time she entered the ring, Chichiro had calmed down from whatever anger she'd had left over from Hiei's assault. Even she could realize that she'd deserved it, or at least something like it—a punch was a little severe just for pestering him.

Although she knew it would have made more sense to allow Kurama to fight thanks to the injury she'd received in the last fight, she still found that she had the drive to battle. Kurama, after all, was less bloodthirsty than she and Hiei were, and was far more willing to sit out battles.

_Besides_, she thought to herself as she regarded the opponents across from them, _those guys don't look so tough._

True enough, the first of the pair didn't. She was a lavender-skinned demoness with a small, short horn protruding her brow; a hand was placed casually on her slender hip, and in her other hand she held a whip that she'd summoned from a strand her own hair, coiled into loops in her fist as she waited for the round to start. Yusuke and Kuwabara would have recognized her on sight as Myuki, one of the demon triad that had guarded the mansion of Gonzo Tarukane, where Yukina had been imprisoned. Hiei recognized her from the description provided in the spirit world file, which he had "borrowed" at the close of the case when Koenma refused to supply it to him.

The second of their opponents was unfamiliar, and contrary to what Chichiro had thought to herself, he looked a bit tougher. He was gargantuan, far larger than any demon they'd faced in the tournament so far, and had decidedly reptilian features. The electric sense given off by his energy suggested that, as with many others of the tournament, he was likely a lightning demon as well. They were a generally ambitious and arrogant sort of demon, quite like fire demons such as Hiei, so it was not surprising that so many had entered a tournament only spawned for personal gain and proving oneself.

Chichiro wore an odd expression as she examined Myuki. The other, nearly purple-skinned demoness had an oddly masculine scent, and Chichiro decided for the sake of whatever innocence a few hundred-year-old demoness such as herself could have retained not to think much into it.

Chichiro would have likely faced off against Myuki if Hiei had not shown such drive to fight the she-demon himself. Wordlessly, he stepped in front of and past Chichiro and stopped before Myuki, several feet off, and glared at her in silence.

Shrugging, unaffected, Chichiro stepped a few yards to the side and watched her larger, male opponent in silence as they waited for the announcer to ask their names and tell them to begin.

When the question was lifted after a minute or so of silence (Which was uncommon of this tournament, but Chichiro figured that the ones running it were still behind because of the setback from the previous round), the names were given as follows: "Myuki."

"Kokigin."

"Chichiro."

"Hiei."

Chichiro found herself surprised that Hiei had actually spoken his name, finally, but she didn't allow her surprise to show or last. She simply faced forward once again and glowered at her opponent, who had named himself as Kokigin.

"BEGIN!"

Neither Hiei or Chichiro had to be told twice.

The fire demon facing off against Myuki flickered from her sight before she could even slash her whip, and she rapidly lowered her body into a defensive crouch, eyes suspiciously watching the ring for any sign of movement.

She was too late to block Hiei's attack when she sensed him behind her, but she did manage to evade the brunt of it and received only a painful slash on the back of her neck; it was lucky—the attack had aimed to remove her head from her shoulders. Even if she had escaped once, it was not likely to happen many more times. Although she had improved since battling Yusuke and must have at least been a mediocre fighter to get this far, she was no match for Hiei. She was still far too much of an amateur.

Hiei knew Myuki had not personally wanted to keep Yukina captive, for she had only been hired and worked for Tarukane only at Toguro's request and because it would earn her and her two comrades a fair price for their services. However, this fact did not change the burning rage he felt at seeing her, and the fact that he found he could not face her without a hateful bias. It also didn't allow him to acknowledge that Kokigin was likely the stronger of the two, and it would have made more sense for him to face the larger demon rather than for the wounded Chichiro to do so.

The fox demoness didn't seem very distraught over handling Kokigin. No, she seemed quite pleased to be facing off against him, actually. When he summoned a whip with a thick strand of hair, quite like Myuki's own weapon, her enthusiasm seemed to falter some as she mumbled to herself, "How sanitary _that_ must be."

The demon leviathan didn't notice the put-off expression on her face, and simply twirled his whip—perhaps fifteen feet long—above him before sending it flying with a swish of his giant, thick arm. As she dodged the slender whip sailing toward her, Chichiro noted with limited interest and a certain wariness that the hair-whip was growing spikes that seemed to be an homage to Kurama's own weapon. Whether this was intended by the larger beast or not, she couldn't say, but she found that she relaxed somewhat facing a semi-familiar weapon.

Allowing her hand to tap ever so lightly on the stone ring, she sprang back by putting weight on her palm and shoving herself backward to land in a crouch. Promptly, she had shot forward toward him with her light and wind sword summoned in one hand and her nails lengthening into mean-looking claws on the other.

Her opponent saw her attack coming easily, though he did not use his hair whip to counterattack. Rather, he had looped that up and strung it around his upper arm as one would do with an unused rope. He only lifted his hands before him, poised to attack, his own claws also unsheathed.

Kokigin was fast for a large demon—faster than Chichiro had first thought. However, he was still not faster than her. Before he could even raise his arm entirely, she had slashed a deep gash into his lower left arm and had dragged her claws up his midsection. Slamming her bare heel into his chest and kicking off of his ribs, she wished sorely as her form leapt away from him that she was still wearing her high-heeled boots. _Would have done more damage than my foot, at least,_ she thought to herself, unaware of how girlish it was to be thinking of shoes during a battle.

A sudden pain came to her ankle, and she felt as though surely the pressure around it would make the bone within her leg snap. She recognized the feel of Kokigin's hand constricting her limb as she felt herself yanked back over to him, and his second free hand found her throat.

Recalling how easily she had defeated her last opponent once such a hold had been acquired, Chichiro resisted the urge to snatch her hands at Kokigin's larger fingers and instead allowed her sword to arc up toward her massive opponent's arm. The blade of it imbedded itself into his arm, breaking through the skin on the opposite side of his limb, causing a satisfactory amount of bleeding when she absorbed the energy weapon back into her body and left the sword wound without a proper 'plug'.

Enraged at this retaliation, as if he had believed that Chichiro would simply give in once he had the upper hand, Kokigin let out an ear-slipping roar that sounded strikingly animalistic. As her body was rammed into the stone of the ring by the throat hold Kokigin still had, the she-demon nearly regretted her rebuttal, thinking that perhaps she should have thought it through better.

_Ah, well,_ she thought, far too casually for the heat of battle, and again considered, _At least my body isn't as frail as a human's, else that would have snapped my neck and a few other bones._

She thought she had felt something in her shoulder dislocate, however, but it was not to be worried about at the moment.

Hiei, across the ring, was just finishing dispatching of Myuki when he heard his teammate's body slam into the ground. Flicking his sword to rid it of the blood and prevent any rusting past what had already spread on his blade from years of abuse, he seemed in no immediate hurry to help his "comrade" after the stunt she'd pulled earlier. Still, he had gotten even earlier with his punch, and so he decided to go to her aid when she gave a small cry of pain, obviously bitten back as not to give her adversary any sadistic pleasure. Or perhaps simply from pride. Always got herself into a pinch in these later fights, Hiei noticed with severe irritation at the fact.

"Stupid woman," he snarled to himself. Leaping for Kokigin, his body arced backward, his sword raised and held with both hands as he prepared to slam it into the mammoth demon's skull.

Kokigin had sensed the attack in time to release Chichiro—who was cast off to the side without further thought—and avoid death, but not injury. As his massive hand swept sideways and smacked Hiei aside as though the shorter demon was merely an irksome insect, the fire youkai's katana had slashed a deep cut into Kokigin's limb.

Luckily for the leviathan, however, Hiei had also lost the sword when his body had been sent flying backward, and it clattered clumsily to the ground some twenty feet from him. Scrambling to his feet with nearly panicked haste uncharacteristic of himself, Hiei dove for the sword and narrowly escaped being crushed by Kokigin's hand as it attempted to snatch him up. The gust of air caused by the massive limb passing inches away from him caused his course to be altered the slightest and, rather than landing in front of the sword, Hiei found himself sailing past it to the side. His landing was rougher than he'd anticipated as well, and he did his best to ignore the pressure on his ribs as his body hit the ground front-down. Winded, he still smirked when his hand found his katana's hilt as the momentum of his form caused him to slide past where he had landed.

With what seemed like perfect timing, Hiei spun onto his back with his blade raised above him. As he had anticipated, Kokigin had dove for him once again and the massive demon's head had skewered itself onto the sword.

Barely slipping from beneath his opponent before the mammoth creature's body collapsed, Hiei sprang backward from the giant demon's form and realized aloud after the fact, "I didn't get my sword in time." Allowing a low sigh to spill his lips as he swished his head to the side to remove the strands of hair from before his eyes, he continued in a mutter, "Damn."

As soon as the match was declared over, Kurama had leapt up onto the ring and helped Chichiro stand. She grinned sheepishly at him as she did, rubbing at her neck and commenting, "Yeah…Not my best show, I gotta say." _At least_, she considered, _my shoulder isn't dislocated after all._

"Don't worry about it," Kurama replied with a smile. "Hiei's had to rescue me, too, as you've seen."

From some ten feet away from them, Hiei gave a low snort and muttered something to the effect of, "And I left Mukuro's service for _this_…?"

"Thank you, Hiei!" Chichiro called over to him with exaggerated sweetness, obviously just to irritate him. All the same, she meant what she said and figured he'd know that.

Kurama, at her side, chuckled lightly and then headed for the doorway as Hiei was, followed closely by Chichiro. The she-demon, however, made way for Hiei rather than the hallway directly.

"Did you know Myuki before the tournament or something?" she asked as she came up to walk beside the shorter demon.

"Why do you ask?" Hiei responded disinterestedly.

"Well, you seemed…more pissed than usual while you were fighting. Like it was personal or something."

Although he felt no burning desire to spill the tale of Yukina's capture to Chichiro, he knew the demoness was of a persistent sort and relented just to be sure she wouldn't harass him to tell her for an extended period of time. "She was hired to aid a human bastard keep someone I cared for imprisoned. I had never met Myuki before today; I simply knew her from when I stole and checked over the assignment file from the spirit detective who took the case."

"Wow," Chichiro snickered, her voice obviously amused and meant only to tease Hiei, "there's actually someone out there you 'care for'? Astounding. Never would have guessed it."

The fire demon's hand rested on his katana's hilt suddenly, but Chichiro only laughed.

"Oh, calm down, jerk," she told him with a smirk; the smoothness of the word 'jerk' made it seem almost like a nickname rather than an insult, and Hiei gathered that she was simply so used to calling him that now that it felt natural and she barely noted the word's meaning any longer. "I was just givin' you a hard time, no need to get all pissy on me."

Kurama, who had been listening to their conversation as he trailed after them while they headed for and into the hall toward their own rooms, figured then that Koenma had gotten the out-of-character habit of using the word 'pissy' from Chichiro.

The she-demon ahead of him fell silent only a short moment before her face adopted a more guarded expression, one lacking her prior amusement. "So," she voiced more softly, "are you healed from that poison of Marcella's, then?"

"For the most part," Hiei replied monotonously, wondering why she'd brought it up, "and I have been for days, now. Well enough to mangle you in a battle, I'm sure."

She grinned broadly at that, though he figured it wasn't entirely from the suggestion that she responded with, but also from relief. "Mind if I test that theory out?"

But his course had already shifted from his room, and she could tell he was headed for the forest out behind the arena and she smirked as she followed him to their usual sparring ground.

As Kurama watched them go, he noticed that there had been a change in the way they walked beside one another. It was the smallest, most insignificant of changes, but then Kurama had never been an unobservant one. Their gaits as they walked next to each other were more relaxed, even the antisocial Hiei's, and he could tell that for whatever reason, they were beginning to lose their dislike of one another. In fact, the emotion was almost being reversed and the fox figured that in the near future it would be.

Shaking his head in wonder, he didn't bother trying to figure out the complexities behind this adjustment in their relationship. It was better left alone.

--

Night found Chichiro in her room, lying back on her ridiculously uncomfortable bed with her legs crossed and her fingers weaved together behind her head. A heavy sigh spilled her parted lips as she draped her arm over her brow and across her eyes. Unconsciously, she drew her fingers from her other hand across a long but shallow gash on her lower arm from her spar with Hiei earlier that day.

Kurama was right, though of course Chichiro didn't know he had been considering the same thing. She didn't dislike Hiei as much as she felt she should—some two hundred years back, he had slaughtered her family and left her alive because it wouldn't be _fun_ to murder her and give her the blissful rest that she had ached for, for such a long time. And yet, now she did not feel so willing to die, so gravely hopeful that morning would find her but a breathless shell. This was not a new consideration—it must have been fifty to a hundred years ago that she had adopted such a mindset, but now she noticed it so much more.

She was beginning to _care_ for her family's assassin. She had been ignoring it for so long because it was hard to admit that such an emotion was possible. That was not to say that she wanted or expected anything of him or that she considered him a friend, but she knew with something between frustration and sorrow that she was headed in that direction. Hell, she probably _was_ already at that point, but for now she refused to acknowledge that.

Her thoughts were broken as she heard the slightest of sounds, and as her furry blue fox ears twitched and swiveled toward the doorway, she turned her head too so that she could glance at who had arrived outside her room. Blinking once, she quirked a single black eyebrow and glowered in an especially cold manner at the demon that her eyes found and rested on. "Hiei?" she growled, not with the friendliest note in her tone. "What do _you_ want?"

"Forgive me," he replied with thick, undisguised sarcasm, "but I couldn't help but find the fact that you were lingering so much on thoughts of me to be interesting."

Chichiro felt the corner of her eye twitch, and she thought a flush of color had come to her cheeks. It wasn't a blush—her face had reddened from anger. "You've been watching my thoughts, then?"

"Couldn't help myself," the fire demon responded with an aggravating smirk, an arrogant look upon his face; his countenance was somehow pleased, but not in a kind way. "They were so unguarded." He nodded toward her. "So were you."

"Shut up," she snarled, but she found she could not meet his gaze anymore as she sat up and turned her face the slightest bit away from him. "You have no right to read my mind without permission."

He was silent a long moment before he grumbled pitilessly, "So then, you consider me a friend? You do realize friendship is not an indulgence I have time for, don't you?"

"Not often, anyhow," the she-demon replied with an exaggerated sigh. She had finally achieved a tone of indifference, which she had been struggling with before then. With the mental block she'd put on her thoughts, now realizing that Hiei had been correct about their lack of guardedness, Hiei could only use intuition to notice that said indifference was forced and feigned. "What do you consider Kurama if you don't have time for friends?" Without waiting for a response, she growled, "I don't consider you a friend, Hiei. I don't know where you got it." With a smirk, she finished, "Kurama is the only one on our team I have 'time' to consider a friend."

"Hn," was Hiei's response to that, though it sounded amused and his matching smirk didn't hinder the idea in the least. "Fine, then. You can tell yourself that all you want—maybe you've even convinced yourself." He straightened from where he had leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed. "But you should realize that my jagan is not so weak as to allow me to believe and see only what your conscious mind believes."

A last, arrogant and fanged smirk played across his lips before he disappeared from where he stood and Chichiro could not sense him nearby any longer.

Rolling her eyes, she disregarded the suggestion that her subconscious recognized her care for him even if she ignored the possibility at the front of her mind. Lying back down, the she-demon shoved Hiei from her mind with a vehemence that made sure thoughts of him would not enter it against that night. With a third and final sigh, she closed her eyes and surrendered to sleep.


	12. Passing the Time

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 12—Passing the Time

--

"Yusuke!" The greeting was unusually warm. Perhaps it was due to the stress of the tournament; perhaps it was the influence of the fact that Kurama lacked Chichiro to talk to and that Hiei was not willing to chat in the first place. "How are you?"

The face of the black-haired delinquent broke into a large smile on the communication mirror's screen. "Hey, fox-boy! I'm seriously bored—figured I should check up on how everything's going there. Is pacifier-breath still there with you guys?"

"Strangely, yes," Kurama replied, finding that his smile had not faltered even when Yusuke had sprung one of his annoying nicknames on the redhead.

The former spirit detective gave his typical, infectious snicker as he said, "He hasn't bailed yet? That's not like Koenma."

Kurama shrugged, changing the subject as a thought came to mind. "How is it that you had the time to make this call? Koenma mentioned that your current mission was—How did he put it?—_bigger_ than ours."

"Ehh, that's over'n done with already." Yusuke didn't appear too happy with that fact. "Good thing, too," he continued, contradicting the blatant expression of disappointment on his face. "Keiko'd fillet me if I took my longer. You know she's not too patient, 'specially with spirit world stuff."

"What was that, Yusuke-dear?" her voice called in the background with feigned sweetness, the nickname lathered in dangerous sarcasm.

"Nothing, Keiko!" the former detective called back, then he grinned nervously at Kurama. "Well, I was hopin' to meet your new partner, but I guess I better go. She—" Though he didn't specify, Kurama knew he meant Keiko and couldn't help but lose an humored smile at how often the human female had been mentioned thus far into their short conversation. "—doesn't like me to use any of the spirit detective items I have left over. It makes her think I'm off to spirit world again or something." The delinquent seemed to note Kurama's amusement, and growled, "Hey, I am _not_ whipped. Shut it."

"I said nothing," Kurama replied innocently, but his expression gave him away.

"Sure, whatever." The young, human-appearing ma-zoku saluted Kurama casually and said, "Later!"

"Goodbye, Yusuke. Nice to speak with you."

The former detective gave a light, 'heh' and fuzz appeared on the screen of Kurama's communication mirror as Yusuke hung up. Clicking the small device shut as well, the fox demon tucked it into his pocket.

--

A low, guttural snarl spilled Chichiro's lips as the demoness half-sighed, half-growled in frustration. Ignoring the fact that she currently appeared rather feral, she straightened from her fighting stance, leaning her weight back onto her right foot as she crossed her arms. Biting her lip, she considered for the umpteenth time what she had done wrong—why was it impossible for her to duplicate the darkness technique she had heard so much buzz about from the first Demon World Tournament?

Although she herself had not seen it or been able to participate in the tournament and compete against Hiei, she had heard much about his infamous Dragon of the Darkness Flame. If she had, certainly she would have recognized him when she "first" met him in Koenma's office, and would not have needed to ask his name; the only reason she'd taken interest in the name initially anyhow was _because_ of how famous his amazing attack was and she wanted to know who had been the one to perform it.

Chichiro chose to disregard the fact that said attack had failed against Hiei's opponent—the great Mukuro was not to be brought down by her own subordinate, after all, and it had not been surprising. She wanted to learn it anyhow.

Unaware of its workings, it was likely that it would be futile to attempt it. That she knew of, Hiei had been the first to use it and survive, let alone master it so well. But, as she was nearly as arrogant as the fire demon himself, she would try until she got it right.

Finally breaking from these thoughts, she flexed her left hand, which she'd been using to attempt the attack. It was sore from the dark energy she _had_ been able to conjure, though there were no noticeable traces on her skin of the training she'd been doing. Bringing her lower arm up toward her shoulder with her hand clenched, she almost seemed to be lifting weights while lacking the actual tools to do so, but in reality, her arm had just been getting stiff.

Putting the sore hand on her hip after deciding not to give any further notice to the ache of the arm it was at the end of, she ran her opposite hand through her hair and stared fixedly at the ground. _How did he do it…?_

"You'll never be able to conjure it without my help," Hiei's voice came from behind her.

Snapping out of her more relaxed position, her face took on an even further agitated expression as she glared backward at him. "As if you'd help me."

"You're right, I won't." He smirked. "It's still fun to watch you try." Walking forward toward her, he slid his katana from its sheath and held it before him, stopping about ten feet in front of her. "Shall I try a meeker version of it on you, so that you may study its workings?" From the tone of his voice, he wanted nothing more than to maul her with the attack; he wasn't trying to help her and he didn't care that she knew it. "After all, from what I understand, you have nothing to go on right now. You're only guessing."

Glowering in cold silence a moment, Chichiro didn't notice that her attitude toward Hiei had changed yet again. Suddenly, it was as if she hated him as much as she had the years directly after her family's slaughter, and yet the way she appeared to regard him then was only brought on by the fact that she despised admitting to herself that she cared for and about him. Strange was the mind of the she-demon, and she'd at least have no problem admitting _that_. "I will figure it out for myself." Bending her left arm at the elbow again, she spread her fingers apart and allowed dark energy to seep through them, curling around her hand as though it was a tiny, black serpent. "I'm doing so as we speak."

Hiei couldn't help but lose a genuine grin at that, sadistic as it may have been. "And again: _almost_ impressive."

Not understanding the reference to the fight in which she revealed her second form for the first time (Since she had, in fact, been unconscious by the point that Hiei said it), Chichiro just narrowed her eyes at him. "Is there something else you want to say, Hiei, or are you done wasting my time?" she asked as a small rumble of thunder above alerted them to an oncoming storm. The she-demon had noted that it had been darkening unusually early while she was training, but had thought nothing of it beforehand.

The short fire demon shrugged lightly. "I suppose not. You're in a foul mood, I can tell, so I'd rather not spar you right now. You tend to be less health-conscious when you're pissed off with me." Then he turned, sheathing his sword as he did so and tucking his hands into his pockets as he walked away.

The corners of Chichiro's mouth twitched, but she looked away from him and pivoted to face the deeper part of the forest once again before she could accidentally allow herself to smile at his rugged, irritating sort of charm. She didn't realize for a while afterward how strange it was that Hiei's excuse for leaving had made it seem almost as though he occasionally worried for her welfare.

As she stared fixedly at her own feet, the angry-seeming sky suddenly split and the ground began to darken in small patches as the rain began to fall.

--

Kurama, though possessing the ability to be entirely expressionless otherwise, was terrible at hiding his amusement when he found something comedic. This Chichiro noticed for the first time as she presented herself at his doorway, soaked to the bone by the onslaught of rain. Her hair was plastered against her skull and her fox ears must have drooped at least a small amount; they felt heavy and she twitched them often to shake the rain droplets from their bluish fur.

"I assume that is indeed rain that I hear, then?" Kurama asked, making a feeble attempt to contain a small chuckle as he lowered the book in his hand. Though still his last, it was taking him longer to read than assumed simply because he had been so busy lately; when he wasn't busy with the tournament, Chichiro often bugged him, but he couldn't say he minded being bothered by her most of the time.

"Shut up," she replied, walking over to his bead, where he sat against the wall and had his legs stretched out before him. His feet hung over the edge, as the mattresses were singles and he was sitting width-wise.

Whipping her hair behind her back with greater force than necessary, Chichiro sat beside him and allowed herself a private smirk as Kurama made a noise of protest when her hair sprayed little drops of water onto him.

"You're getting my book wet," he complained, "not to mention my bed."

She only shrugged and leaned back onto her arms as she crossed one leg over the other at the edge of the mattress. "Whoops."

Uttering a small sigh, the fox said, "You could at least _pretend_ to care."

"I did," Chichiro protested without much vigor, grinning back at him. "Just not very hard."

Shaking his head, Kurama opened his mouth to reply but jolted and stopped as a small, shrill noise accompanied by buzzing came from his pocket. Craning his neck the mildest bit, he withdrew the purple communication mirror from his pant leg and flipped it open. "Why, hello Yusuke," he greeted, appearing to Chichiro to only be speaking to the small contraption; she could not see Yusuke's face from where she sat. "Keiko permitted you leave, then?"

"Ha-hah," the communication mirror responded sarcastically.

Stretching back and leaning over to look at the small contraption, Chichiro blinked at the screen a moment as she took in the Japanese boy's features. A rather large grin spread across her own as recognition flickered within her eyes. "Yusuke-fuckin'-Urameshi!" she cried in a less-than-feminine, gruff manner. "Pleasure to meet you, if you can really call this 'meeting' you."

"Ah, don't suppose you know Japanese?" the former spirit detective asked in response, though in his native dialect. "Can't say I paid much attention in English language class."

"Don't suppose you know demon?" Chichiro replied in one of the more common of the various Makaian tongues.

"Well enough," Yusuke agreed in the same language, which Hokishin had taught him during his time in Raizen's kingdom. "So, you know me by sight, huh? Sorry to say I just have to guess you're the new spirit detective or somethin'."

"One of," Chichiro corrected, nodding with a good-natured grin. "I don't blame you for not knowin' me. Least you could guess, eh?"

Kurama could tell just by how casual they already were with one another that they would get along well. They were similar enough, that was for sure.

To Kurama, and in Japanese once again, Yusuke said, "So, you never told me—How are things going there?"

"Well enough," the fox replied. "Very slowly, though. Unfortunately, we have had much free time between these last few battles."

"Speaking of battles," the former detective said as he thought of it, "where's good ol' three-eyes, anyhow? I haven't seen him in a while."

Kurama shrugged, raising his red eyebrows as he did so. Figuring Yusuke was not the type to be satisfied with simply a gesture, he told the black-haired delinquent, "I haven't seen him around today. He's been…inconspicuous as of late, I must say."

Yusuke laughed. "Yeah, that sounds like Hiei."

Chichiro flashed Kurama a suspicious glance. "What are you guys talking about? I heard Hiei's name."

"Cool it, demon chick!" Yusuke told her, having switched his tongue yet again to one she would understand better, with a mischievous and not entirely kind grin. "We're not 'movin' in' on him, if that's what you're worried about."

Chichiro's eyes widened and she leaned her head back a bit to glare down her nose at Yusuke as she hissed coldly, "Excuse me?"

Shrinking down a bit and for a moment not being quite so visible on the small, circular screen before, Yusuke reappeared after a second or two and smiled nervously at Kurama. "She reminds me of Keiko, y'know?"

_She reminds me more of you, actually,_ Kurama thought, but didn't voice it. He simply nodded and acted as though he caught the personality resemblance between Chichiro and Yusuke's fiancé.

Chichiro had since left Yusuke's line of sight and had leaned against Kurama's wall near the window, appearing especially sour after Yusuke's jesting hint toward her and Hiei's relationship. Not seeing her, the delinquent mouthed to Kurama, 'Is she gone?'

Kurama shook his head the slightest, as not to attract Chichiro's attention, and said, "I hear you finally proposed to Keiko honestly."

Yusuke laughed lightly and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yeah…that was a while ago, actually." His typical grin remained present on his face as he spoke, and Kurama was amused to see how much his care for Keiko was written on his face, now. "I'm surprised you heard about it, though—where'd you find out?"

"Kuwabara told me," the fox responded. Before Yusuke could ask, he continued, "I ran into him not long before we received this assignment, actually."

"Well," Chichiro put in from nearby, "as amusing as it is to listen to you boys talk in a language I'm pretty bad at, catch a few tidbits and hear mentions of people I don't know, I think I'm gonna find somethin' else to do."

'_Something else' being…?_ Kurama wondered, though he said nothing to her aloud but, "Alright," and turned back to continue his conversation with Yusuke as she exited the room.

"Pretty easy to piss off, isn't she?" the black-haired boy he faced asked.

"I suppose so. She isn't always like that, I assure you."

But right then, she was, and right then, she wanted little more than to find Hiei and ask for a spar so that she could prove with her attacks something that was a lie—she wanted to assure herself with her cold assaults that the comment Yusuke made (However joking and however much it jested and he and Kurama would _want_ to be with Hiei) about her 'liking' of Hiei was not correct. Yet it was. And the demoness still had a very hard time acknowledging it.

"Hiei!" she called almost rabidly when she entered the wood, eyes cast upward even as the rain stung at her eyes and as her hair was matted to her head. Her fox ears swiveled back, though she did not notice it, from the frustration as well as the desire to keep the inside of them dry. She was just beginning to flick the water from her twin tails as Hiei appeared not too far away from her, looking expectant. "I'll have that spar, now," she growled coldly.

"What did I say not an hour ago about your anger, Chichiro?" he replied disinterestedly.

She found herself stunned that he had used her name, though she knew not why. "And what did I just tell you, Hiei? I'll have a spar whether you're a willing participant or not."

His stance shifted, becoming planned and one that clearly stated training in martial arts as he summoned a fire ball. For the rain to only force sizzling sounds from the little orb and for it to not flicker at all, she realized he must have had extreme control over the blaze.

Summoning her weapon, she ran for him in one of her typical direct assaults, simply to attack and get the spar started rather than because she honestly thought it would work.

"After that little declaration of yours," he grumbled, "all you can do is charge blindly? I was so hoping for an honest challenge."

The rain, so very temperamental, came down far harder all of a sudden with a large gust of wind, and then began to slow to a drizzle. This Chichiro hardly noticed as she anticipated Hiei would move to his left in a casual motion to dodge, as he generally did so for show and to demonstrate how weak his opponent was. When she slashed her blade in this direction, she was disappointed to find that he sprang above it, releasing his fire ball aimed toward her.

Springing back, she came at him again when he landed, though he drew no weapon and did not summon another fire ball. Bored with the fight already or waiting to gage her attack, she thought. But then, even as her sword came within a yard of him, he had not flinched from his position. Her eyes widened when she realized he had no intent to dodge it, standing still as ever with a blank expression that lacked fear. Reeling, she switched herself around at the last minute so that her back would be the thing to ram into him rather than her weapon, but she sensed him step lightly to the side before her body hit. Instead, he grabbed her about her shoulders with one arm across her front parallel to her collarbone, and his own sword was drawn before she even realized it was at her throat. "Do not draw your weapon against me unless you intend to kill me with it," he spat at her coldly, without a stroke of gentleness.

Yet, Chichiro realized the flaw in this statement even as she felt his blade press lightly against her exposed neck, even as she was made vulnerable by his anger. "So then why do you hesitate when you draw yours, and why is it allowed when it is your hand that holds the weapon and not mine?"

He was silent behind her a long moment, and then he released her and allowed her form to spin out of his way as he sheathed his katana, stalking off without further comment. The rain about them was slowing further now, and it was but a gentle sprinkle.

"What about the spar?" she called after him, though it was now a grin that passed across her lips rather than the sour expression she'd worn earlier. Her hesitation against him had proven what she had wanted to disprove, but his equal hesitation (though delivered in a far less friendly manner) had comforted that knowledge somehow.

"I will not spar those who do not wish to," he snarled back to her, not turning to face her as he spoke. "You wanted something else of that fight, though I can say with honesty I have no desire to find out what."

Chichiro's emerald gaze held none of its previous malice, and she bore a content smile as she watched his form disappear into the shadows of the forest around them. It lightened considerably with his passing, the dark, angry clouds splitting open in a different way as the first tentative rays of sunlight leaked the cracks.

She headed back when the sunlight fell across her face, finding that however much she tried, she could not regain the bitterness from Yusuke's comment. Though she'd no idea what possessed her to do it, she was still smiling when she got back to the arena.


	13. Return to Battle

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 13—Return to Battle

--

The break from fighting was nearly over. It was a fact that Chichiro was sorely glad for; she had been getting restless in the mundane of tournament life when all was calm. Hiei, to add to her issues, had been avoiding sparring with her, and Kurama just played too nicely when she fought him. Thus, she had been unable to let out much of her pent-up energy, save when she trained on her own, and that was certainly not very stimulating.

For this reason, she found that she was unusually enthusiastic when she heard the voice on the loudspeaker announce, "_The next round will begin shortly. Those scheduled to fight next, report to the center of the arena to be on-call at the time of their battles._"

When she arrived at the doorways of Hiei and Kurama's rooms, she was mildly disappointed that both of her teammates were absent, making her unable to harass them about getting ready for the round. Not to have her good mood doused, however, Chichiro decided to simply go on ahead and wait for the two to arrive at their own pace, so long as they weren't late.

Not five minutes passed of her standing alone just inside the hallway that lead to the ring before Kurama approached from behind, followed soon by Hiei.

"Ready?" Kurama asked as a greeting.

"Chyah!" Chichiro responded enthusiastically, though Kurama doubted she entirely understood the expression and figured she was echoing it from someone as she had echoed 'toodles' from Botan.

"Who is taking this round?" Hiei asked with little curiosity. Kurama could sense that the Jaganshi was as edgy from lack of action as Chichiro all the same.

He didn't comment on this and rather answered his comrade's question with, "I had intended to. Either of you are welcome to—"

"I'll go," Chichiro interrupted quickly, as if fearful that Hiei would call dibs on the fight if she didn't speak now.

Oddly, the fire demon only uttered a low, "Hn," and didn't complain.

Eyeing him suspiciously, Chichiro looked away from Hiei only when Kurama moved forward toward the center of the arena. She trailed after him, her leap earning her the first spot on the stone ring.

With little delay, they were joined by the pair of opponents they were to face: A black-haired, blue-skinned demon that named himself as 'Jaikiko', and a dark-skinned, green-haired she-demon with a small horn in the center of her brow that announced that her name was 'Waikiki.'

"BEGIN!"

Chichiro didn't need to be told twice. Sooner than the initiating word could begin to echo on the walls of the stadium, she had summoned her light and wind sword and was dashing for her opponent with features rather like Myuki. This one lacked the masculine scent, though.

She was also less lady-like, so she proved as she bent her knees low and began to charge Chichiro's own rush with her head lowered almost like a bull. Chichiro sprang upward using the she-demon's back as a push off, having recognized her opponent's intent to pierce her horn into the fox demoness's belly. Being that she had earned an abdominal wound as recently as she had, Chichiro had no desire to gain a new one.

As she was airborne, she lifted her eyes to see how Kurama's fight had started. Even though she could only catch a glimpse of it, Chichiro realized that Waikiki must have been the true muscle of the team—Jaikiko had nothing against Kurama, and it would have probably been a rather pitiful fight to watch if she'd the time. Then again, perhaps Kurama was just more skilled than Chichiro thought; that, too, was believable. After all, not many demon teams were female-dominated.

Waikiki reminded her quickly where her mind should be by using the blunt force of her horned skull to knock Chichiro from her feet as soon as she landed on them and send her rolling across the ring. Stunned and breathless from the strength of the slam against her side, the fox demoness was barely able to stagger to her feet in time to leap out of the way of another assault.

_I wasn't distracted that long_, Chichiro thought to herself, still a little shaken from the unexpectedness of the attack. Even in battle, she was not used to being caught off guard and she could normally read her opponent's speeds and strengths better than she had this time. _She must be as fast as Hiei to have turned that quickly_. And then as she considered it, _And to know exactly where I would land…_

Again she was forced from her thoughts by Waikiki's advance, but this time Chichiro was more ready for it and was able to spring out of the way unscathed. Dodging would get her nowhere, though, and so when the single-horned demoness turned and ran for her again she stood her ground, sword held before her, about to lance into Waikiki. But suddenly the fierce, hard-headed little demoness was gone, and Chichiro felt her stomach drop.

_How the hell is she so fast…?_

Kurama casually cast a glance across the ring to Chichiro, able to block Jaikiko's jab without even looking to him. The blue-skinned demon was not fast or very skilled, and quite frankly he should not have been this far into the tournament. Thus, Kurama assumed the same thing that had come to Chichiro's mind initially: Waikiki was the only reason this team had gotten so far.

He was about to turn back to his own battle, however easy it happened to be, when he realized that Waikiki was hanging in the air above Chichiro some thirty feet up, just about to sail downward with a large scimitar in hand. "Chichiro, above you!" he called, as he recognized easily enough that the fox demoness was unaware of her opponent's whereabouts.

Head jerking up, Chichiro was barely able to dodge serious injury as she shot from beneath Waikiki's attack. Her back still sported a new slash from the thick sword, and as soon as the horned demoness touched down, Waikiki had drawn a second sword in the blink of an eye and was using her twin blades to keep Chichiro on her toes.

The fox demoness had given up on using her own sword quite some time ago, and had absorbed it into her body so that it would not slow her down while she was dodging. Now, she summoned it once again to block the two curved scimitars, shoving her weight against it as best she could.

For a demon so much smaller than Chichiro, Waikiki had surprising strength. She, unlike many of the others that Chichiro, Hiei and Kurama had faced in this tournament, deserved to be here. She was a true fighter, experienced as well as naturally gifted like Yusuke, and she knew it. She also knew Chichiro would have a hard time keeping up with her, let alone winning the battle, and she had not wasted any time once she had such knowledge. Her attacks were becoming swifter, more vicious, and the fox demoness facing her blades was barely able to keep herself from being slashed in half—she had no time for counter attacks, only blocks.

_Should have let Hiei take this one_, Chichiro thought desperately, for although she hated to, she had to admit that he was quicker and stronger than she. Not by too much, she'd argue, but he would not have been struggling so badly against Waikiki.

Luckily, Kurama had just landed the killing stroke on Jaikiko when this thought crossed her mind, and he was quick to head for the pair to aid Chichiro.

Waikiki cast a fierce glance at the approaching Kurama, and Chichiro could see that the other demoness knew that—although she was more than a match for her current adversary—she could not easily fight both fox demons at once. Gritting her teeth, the dark-skinned demoness slammed her twin swords onto Chichiro's singular blade with thunderous force, pushing the other demoness back. As Chichiro unwittingly simply tried to keep her ground, Waikiki focused her spirit energy into the palms of her hands, so close to one another now that the hilts of her swords were crossed.

"Chichiro, get back—!" Kurama began, but it was too late to successfully inform her of the attack.

While Chichiro had recognized the warning in his tone and had leaned back away from Waikiki just enough to avoid getting herself killed, she had been unable to fully dodge her opponent's new weapon—a sort of spear summoned from spirit energy. Furthermore, she had just _barely_ avoided the killing stroke; the bluish lance had still pierced into her upper ribs, about an inch beneath the left side of her collarbone and a few inches from her shoulder. Her hand shot to the wound as she drew in a sharp gasp, but it took only seconds for her eyes to slide shut as they rolled back and for her to lose consciousness.

Kurama's rose whip ended the fight, rendering Waikiki unconscious as well, and as the she-demon's vision blackened, her body absorbed the energy spear and allowed Chichiro's wound more room to bleed.

Unaware of the loud speaker announcing their win, Kurama ran to where Chichiro had collapsed and pressed his hands onto her injury as he called to Hiei to find their bandages.

--

Kurama allowed a low sigh to spill his lips as he rubbed the towel in his hand vigorously on his opposite palm, attempting without total luck to get the blood from the cracks of his skin. His eyes drifted towards where Chichiro was laid on the excessively uncomfortable bed of her room for the briefest of seconds before they returned to his hand. She had not woken since the battle, though Kurama doubted that if Hiei had not been so swift that she would have survived at all.

To be perfectly honest, the fox had not thought that any of their team would be so seriously injured in this tournament, least of all _before_ the final battle. He had been far more casual about these fights than he should have been, that much had been made clear by the last battle. If Waikiki had not needed to keep her weapons pressed against Chichiro's and Kurama would have had to fight her honestly, he knew that the battle would not have ended so easily.

His thoughts were interrupted as Hiei arrived in the doorway and tossed him a second towel. When the fox nodded his thanks, the fire demon grumbled, "You could have gotten that yourself. You needn't watch her so intently—I somehow doubt that will change her situation at all."

Ignoring Hiei's intended snide tone, Kurama simply replied, "Thank you for fetching it anyway."

"Hn." The short fire demon's eyes lingered on Chichiro in silence a long moment before he finally said in a rather guarded manner, "I thought for sure she'd finally gotten herself killed this time."

"Don't tell me you're beginning to care about her," Kurama said after a brief pause of trying to gage the other's expression, surprised.

"Don't worry," Hiei muttered back. "I won't."

But as he felt the fox searching his face intently, Hiei knew that Kurama had recognized the lie as easily as he had when his lips formed it.

A small groan from the bed silenced either of their attempts to continue conversation. After blinking heavily several times, Chichiro managed to keep her eyes open, though she only stared at the ceiling a long moment before she gave a louder groan; the second one was noticeably more casual and intended. "We lost, didn't we?" she grumbled flatly, drawing a hand to her forehead as though she had a headache.

"No," Kurama replied with a light smile, "we won. We've advanced to the next round."

"Goody." Chichiro couldn't decide if she was being sarcastic or not even as she spoke it. Although she struggled with it for a moment, she managed to sit up quicker than she thought she would have been able, and she rubbed her hand on the bandage over her wound briefly. It really wasn't too sore, and she would have actually said that other wounds she'd received in this tournament had hurt worse, if she'd been asked. "Thanks, Kurama," she mumbled quietly.

There was shame and anger with herself in her tone, and Kurama heard it rather clearly. He did not comment on it, but rather informed her, "Hiei was a large help, as well, you know. He fetched the bandages and my medicinal supplies for me."

"He…" Chichiro looked up. "He did?" It seemed to occur to—or at least bother—her for the first time that she would have been topless in order for the bandages to be applied and she drew her fingertips up to partially cover her lops, a light flush coming to her face.

Her eyes drifted to Hiei where he stood in the doorway, but he only uttered a softer-than-usual, "Hn," and ducked out without any true comment.

"…I see," she murmured quietly, seeming content now to stare at her feet, nearly but not quite draping off of the short mattress. Her eyelids drooped briefly as though a fit of exhaustion had almost taken her, but then she glanced to Kurama and asked in a surprisingly level and casual voice, "When is the next battle?"

"I believe we have at least a day," Kurama told her, "but you needn't worry about that. Hiei and I will take the next one."

She grinned lightly. "'Kay. Can't say I'll complain this time."

Kurama, having finished cleaning off his hands, dropped the towel he was holding to the floor on top of the other one. As Chichiro eyed the blood-stained cloths seemingly in curiosity, he asked, "So, how are you feeling?"

"Ehh," she replied indifferently. Then, "I guess okay. Doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would, to be honest."

To that, Kurama tossed a small white sack full of what looked like seeds over to her. Reaching out her arms to catch it, Chichiro drew it close to her and blinked at it briefly before Kurama explained, "They're a sort of painkiller. Useful, but not the best thing to use before fights. Remember that, alright?"

She grinned again as she began to untie the little bag. "Okay. Thank you." Gathering a pinch of the stuff inside of it between her fingers, she lifted them near to her face to look closely at the little, black seeds. They had a sort of bluish-green sheen to them, like a beetle's shell. "How many, y'think?"

"Just a few should do it," he answered with a light shrug. "Five or so."

"M'kay." Dropping them onto her tongue, Chichiro felt a smirk slide across her lips. "Mmm!" she began as a sweet flavor had entered her mouth, but suddenly it was overpowered with a horrible, bitter taste fit to make someone gag.

When she began to cough, Kurama sweat-dropped and apologized, "Sorry, I should have warned you. They may be rather good at first, but they have quite the nasty after taste."

Chichiro stuck out her tongue, slicked a blackish-blue as though she had been sucking on an oddly-colored hard candy, and she uttered a little, 'blegh' noise. "Yeah, thanks for gettin' that to me so fast, fox-boy." But suddenly the irritated look melted from her face, and she appeared more awake than before. "Hey, not bad," she commented, her smile returning. "Those do work nicely!"

"Not too many," Kurama reminded her with a return smile.

"Yeah, yeah…"


	14. The Semifinals

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 14—The Semifinals

--

She sensed it when she woke at the first stray streams of light across her bed. It was there when she changed from blood-stained clothes into a spare set she had folded beneath her bed, and it nagged at the back of her mind as she walked into the brisk of the early light of the morning toward the woods. Something was coming—a pivotal event in the future, likely in the near future, that would change everything.

Although she had no idea what was going to happen, she could think of little else as her bare feet led her through the dewy grass of the forest floor toward the clearing where she and Hiei sparred so often. They had no engagement to battle, certainly not so early and not so soon after she'd been injured, but she felt like heading in that direction anyhow. She found that she passed the location completely, though, and continued on the same way she had been walking for some time until the trees yawned and opened into another, larger clearing sporting a chunk of an old boulder that looked to have been destroyed recently. The demoness made way for it, sitting down on one of its smoother surfaces and allowing her eyes to close.

Her mind was running with scenarios, reasons for the sensation. Was something bad to happen in the second to last battle or the final round against Kagura? Was one of her team to die in this tournament? Was it even _about_ the tournament?

She leaned forward, ignoring the burn of her abdomen and chest as the movement agitated her wounds, and she propped her chin on her raised hand.

While the time passed, so too did the immediate, paranoia-inducing effects of her foreboding feeling, and soon enough her thoughts were on the past rather than the possible future.

As memories flashed across her closed eyelids, the demoness considered that—truth be told—it had been many years since she had lingered on the deaths of her family this often. After all, two hundred years was a good amount of time to get over something, not that she had ever entirely recovered from the event. Recalling the way that the blood had spilled her parents' necks and dribbled from their dead lips still had the ability to make her cringe and occasionally even brought tears to her eyes, but anger normally overtook that and she did not remain sad for long.

When she considered this, she also realized that it had been a long time since she'd had a feeling like this—one of foresight, or possibly suggestion that she would have a clear vision. As with her healing abilities, she would not call it a gift or a 'power'; she had little control over it and it showed up when it decided she needed to know something important about the future. Sometimes it was just an irritating, nagging feeling that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and made the fur on her tails bristle with unease, but sometimes it could be a flash of images in her mind both achingly clear and frustratingly brief in the same.

Thus far, she had only received that annoying feeling—the one tapping at the back of her mind telling her,_ Be ready. Be ready for the worst_.This time, however, she had little doubt that a true vision was soon to follow, and she could only pray that she would have it in time to change whatever misfortune was to befall her_ this _time.

Her eyes opened slowly, though they rested on nothing but the little pebbles about her feet that were strewn throughout the grass. Unconsciously, the hand that was propping up her chin uncurled so that her fingers were rested on her cheek, and her index finger began to scrape along her skin. Her claw drew blood as she dragged it down her face, though she did not flinch or even twitch as the short but deep cut began to bleed freely. She uttered a low sigh.

"What are you doing?"

She glanced at Hiei from the corner of her eyes as he spoke, then returned her blank gaze forward and focused on the ground once more. "What does it matter? Sitting, I guess."

"You're bleeding," Hiei noticed monotonously.

She lifted her head just off of her palm, then, her eyes wide but not alarmed as she watched him. "I'm what?" And then she seemed to feel the trickle of blood now dripping from her chin and the sides of her face, and she touched her fingers to the small stream of red and withdrew her fingertips to look at them closely. "…Huh. Would you look at that?" She felt her face and finally her fingers found the little gash from her own nail; her index ran up and down it once as she asked innocently, "How'd that get there…?"

As Hiei watched, he recognized in the way she spoke that she truly could not remember doing it. "Will you be healed before the next round?" he asked, though of course he meant her wound from the last fight and not the little gash on her face.

"Kurama said I didn't have to fight," she told him, appearing surprised he had brought it up. "I don't think it matters."

"That's not what I asked," the Jaganshi growled flatly.

She blinked at him a moment before she said, "Well, no, I don't think I'll be healed by then. I'll probably be healed enough to fight, with the help of Kurama's plants'n such, though."

"Hn."

"Why do you care, anyhow? Like I said, Kurama told me—"

"And the final round?" Hiei interrupted. "Obviously I will be one of the fighters for that. Are you planning to be the second?"

She lifted her eyes to the treetops as she considered. "I don't know," Chichiro mumbled finally. "I hadn't thought too much about it yet, I guess." She had, though, and the only reason that she was not leaping at the opportunity like she would have even the previous day was because of the battle with Waikiki. If she could not handle a demoness that Kagura had thought their team would be able to take care of easily like the rest of the opponents of this tournament, Chichiro had figured, why should she assume that she would be able to handle Kagura?

Silence descended on the clearing for a long moment. The early morning wind, still so cold, rustled the trees and kicked up the piles of fallen leaves that signaled that fall had begun.

"You're distracted." Hiei's voice had come from behind Chichiro. True enough, she had been, for when she focused on him, she noticed a flash of light from the corner of her eye and realized Hiei's sword was at the side of her neck, not a centimeter away from her flesh. "Even injured, you should have seen this coming—and you also would have said you had planned on fighting Kagura without having to even consider."

"I'm a little shaken from the fight yesterday," the fox demoness admitted, unafraid of the katana at her throat because she knew it was for demonstration only. She didn't move or try to move it.

"There's something more," Hiei growled instantly, and after a brief pause he withdrew his weapon.

"I…" She wasn't entirely sure how to word it; after all, she rarely spoke of this sort of thing to another being, and even now she wasn't sure what drove her to explain it to _him_ of all people. She stubbornly decided to settle on that Hiei could likely figure it out for himself later with his jagan if he truly felt like it. "I sense something, that's all. Something big is about to happen."

"Hn." The way she spoke, she reminded him of Kuwabara and his 'feelings', and so he remarked, "You sound like the fool that I used to have to deal with."

She grinned backward at him. "So sorry to have made you get stuck with another, then."

He mirrored her smirk. "I think I'll manage."

Chichiro found that she started at that; somehow, it was unexpected that his return comment would be so close to a jest and not angry or sarcastic like she was used to.

The faint sound of the loud speaker announcing the next round saved her from trying to find a reply.

When her large, furry ears twitched and swiveled back without her knowledge of their movement, Hiei gathered that she had heard something impossible for most ears—such as his own—to pick up. "What is it?"

"Already…?" she mumbled to herself, confused. _I thought Kurama said we had longer…_ "Good thing I'm not fighting," she told Hiei in response to his question with a small grin. "The next round is apparently starting now."

She couldn't tell if it was annoyance or anticipation that entered Hiei's face—he was a rather difficult person to read, that much she'd learned quite easily. When he turned from her toward the direction of the arena, she thought he'd disappear from her view as usual without word, but when she did not move to follow he growled without looking to her, "Are you coming?"

She tried to halt the smile that spread across her face but found she was unsuccessful in the attempt; thus, she was glad that he had not glanced back at her after he'd posed his question. "Yeah, I'm just going to go slower'n you. Not like I need to be there for the fight anyhow."

"Hn." And then he was gone, with little trace he'd ever even been standing before her.

--

Chichiro almost launched into a coughing fit when she set foot on the floor of the arena, just outside the ring where spectators from the battling team were permitted to watch the matches. An enormous dust cloud had been kicked up by something, and for a moment she thought it had been an attack that had caused the cloaking cloud, but a second glance told her that the tunnel of wind _was_ the attack. She figure easily enough that the attack was from the other team, seeing as how neither Hiei nor Kurama had powers over sand or wind, to her knowledge. She kept her eyes on the ring as she walked over to join Koenma.

The battle had started out routine enough. Hiei and Kurama were facing off against two rather feminine-looking male demons with a wild appearance named Assize and Lasiazze that had not used any weapons for the first few minutes, relying only on their fists and legs for assaults.

Then, from nowhere it seemed, Assize had summoned up a thick cloud of sand from the dirt around the ring. The exaggerated movements of his arms—large swishing actions while his torso seemed to come close to rotating along with the circular motions—appeared to control the tornado of dust. Though in many ways it was an impressive maneuver, the ones it had been intended to kill—Chichiro's team—were far too fast to come anywhere near it. Assize's own movements were just too slow and soon enough, after he had figured this out himself, he had expanded the dust cloud to engulf the entirety of the ring.

Chichiro had entered right at that point, and now as she stood beside the prince of the spirit world, she asked quietly, "What's goin' on?"

"Well," he began to fill her in, "the guy Kurama and Hiei are fighting apparently thinks a whole bunch of dirt is somehow gonna take care of our team."

"Ridiculous," Chichiro muttered to herself, but when she attempted to penetrate the cloud with her eyes, she found she could not even see movement within it. _It's not _that_ thick,_ she considered. _I should at least be able to see _one_ of the people fighting…_

In the center of the encased ring, Kurama shielded his eyes from the sting of the sand, ignoring as best he could the raw feeling of his bare hands and face; too much more of this and the skin on them could be scraped off entirely, and he did not much fancy the idea.

As a small pocket of lighter air with little dust whipped around him, he pulled his arm away from his eyes long enough to try and spot Hiei. Annoyingly enough, though, he could not seem to find Hiei _or_ his opponents in the thick fog of pale dirt. If he could take out Assize, then they would only have Lasiazze to deal with, and hopefully he did not also possess the ability to control sand or wind.

He sensed something behind him suddenly, and crouched low to push off the floor of the arena. As he leapt to the side, he caught sight of Assize for the briefest of seconds before the dust cloud engulfed him again, and the fox recognized that he had narrowly avoided being killed by the weapon he'd spotted in his opponent's hand. _So this cloud isn't meant to harm us after all_, he thought as he covered his eyes once more. _It's only a way to keep up blinded while _they_ try to kill us with their own hands._ And as he relied only on his senses to monitor whether or not the opponents he was focused on were nearing or not, he tried not to recall Chichiro's advice that his sensing reflexes '_could use a bit of a check-up_.'

Across the ring a ways, Hiei stood rather nonchalantly with his arms crossed, eyes closed against the sand. At the faint thrum of a bow string, he leaned off to one side and leapt upward, unfolding his arms as he opened his eyes and tried to make out Lasiazze in the fog of dust. All he spotted, though, was the arrow that had thumped into the stone ring where he had stood before. Irritation steadily began to creep into his senses.

Withdrawing his sword from its sheath, he stabbed it into the ground quite unceremoniously and then waited for his opponent's move.

As Kurama waited, he gathered a seed from his mane of hair and pinched it between his fingers. Having figured out easily enough that Assize was somewhat of a coward and also fairly inexperienced, he knew the other demon would attack from behind a second time in a row and he was ready for it when his opponent did indeed leap for him from behind. With a flick of his fingers, his death seed was sewn into the other's body and began to take root even as he dodged Assize's attack. The battle would end soon.

Hiei's was not to last much longer either. His own opponent had decided on more close-range attacks, and every once and a while he'd duck out of the fog and swipe a dagger at Hiei, with little effect, before he would disappear back into the dust. The fire demon was easily able to evade it, and he waited for the perfect moment to exact his plan.

At Lasiazze's next attack, he leapt up into the air—a perfect target for a bow and arrow. Lasiazze lined up the shot and released the arrow slightly ahead of Hiei's descending form, but when he was only feet from the ground and in the place Lasiazze had shot the arrow for, he somehow sprang up again out of the way of it. As though he had kicked off of something invisible, he was suddenly heading straight for Lasiazze with his arm raised. The fire demon's fist slammed into the other's face, and his opponent was sent careening backward.

While the fog of dust began to dissipate, Lasiazze watched Hiei approach with wide eyes. "But…how did you…?!"

Somehow, the spluttering questions of his adversaries never got old for Hiei. "Did you not notice my sword, incompetent?" he muttered back with distaste.

He allowed Lasiazze a moment to recall when he had stabbed the sword into the ground—a perfect kick-off point to avoid an airborne attack. "But then you must have—!"

"—Known exactly when and how you would attack," Hiei finished for his opponent, rolling his eyes. "Stay down. You're not good enough for this tournament."

Lasiazze obeyed, and when the dust cleared enough to reveal Assize—mangled by the death plant—the loud speaker announced the end of the round and Hiei and Kurama's win.

"I never thought I'd see the day when you spared an enemy," Kurama commented with a smile as they were walking back.

"And when you didn't," Hiei added on with a shrug. He didn't really know why he had done it, but it certainly had not been sympathy or pity. "He wasn't worth it," he told Kurama flatly, without interest.

"No, he wasn't," the fox agreed calmly.

At the edge of the ring, Chichiro (covered with dust) eyed the bow still in Lasiazze's grasp, glaring at the quiver of arrows on the demon's back. "A bow?" she growled indignantly. "That doesn't seem fair. Long-range weapons shouldn't be allowed."

"Long-range such as whips and fireballs?" Koenma brought up dryly, though the fox demoness he spoke to hardly seemed to realize he had said anything at all.

"Congratulations!" she called to Hiei and Kurama as they neared, a large grin on her face.

"Yes," Kurama said as he headed for her, returning the smile as usual, "we have made it to the final round. Whenever she decides it will commence, we will face Kagura."

Suddenly, Chichiro knew whatever her foresight involved that it would take place during the battle against the wind demoness mastermind of the tournament, and instantly she had no desire whatsoever to fight in that final round. Only Hiei noticed Chichiro's face fall before she managed to cover it with one of her usual, cheery smirks.


	15. Premonition

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 15—Premonition

--

Chichiro wasn't a very hard person to find when she wasn't trying to hide herself. Kurama had learned this very easily in the duration of Kagura's tournament, for whenever Chichiro left the arena, it seemed to be either for the clearing where she had taken him to spar once, or to the brook they had stumbled upon in one of their first walks. As he sought her out now, he caught her scent when he neared the running water he had been heading toward.

The she-demon was bent nearly in half, resting her elbows on her knees and propping her face up with her hands. Her face was scrunched up in an odd, humorous but not entirely flattering manner from the pressure of her palms beneath her cheeks. Her eyes, though Kurama doubted she could see very well with them narrowed as they were from the said pressure of her hands, were downcast and seemed to be watching the meandering stream of water near her feet. Rather, her gaze seemed to look _past_ the water, at nothing in particular, and he could tell that the demoness was quite lost in thought.

Kurama lingered at the edge of the trees for a short time, not ten feet from her, before he realized she was too focused on whatever she was thinking to even notice his presence; if an enemy had snuck up on her, he wondered if she'd have even sensed it. "Chichiro," he greeted as he walked toward her finally, heading to stand at her left.

She was startled out of her hunched over position, and she welcomed him with a light smile once she realized who it had been to speak. "Oh, hey, Kurama. Didn't notice you."

"I could tell," he responded in a humored tone.

She grinned with mild embarrassment. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Not long, but long enough," he told her simply. He glanced to the rushing water briefly, wondering what within its depths had mystified her so intensely, if it had even been the water that had captivated her. "What were you looking at?" he wondered aloud.

"Nothing," she answered, and if her face had not been so honest, he would have thought she'd said it too soon.

"I see." He offered a light smile. "My mistake, then. May I join you?"

Chichiro smirked. "You already have, Captain Courtesy."

Kurama's smile widened into a grin. "So I have. I meant sitting, though." When Chichiro gave a half-shrug that was also half a motion for him to sit, he continued on to echo her nickname of, "'Captain Courtesy'?"

Chichiro gave a full shrug this time, raising her eyebrows as she sighed lightly, "Gotta keep thinking of new nicknames, or the old ones will get…Well, old."

Kurama chuckled quietly at that. Silence fell for a brief while as the pair of demons stared into the mesmerizing ripples of the brook, and Kurama found that he almost lost himself in thought just as Chichiro had not long before. He caught himself before he could, however, and brought up the topic on his mind that had forced him to seek Chichiro out: "So, have you thought about the last round?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

Kurama picked up easily that she was just pretending to be clueless for the sake of either amusement or to avoid the topic entirely. "We both know well enough Hiei won't be bothered to reconsider fighting against Kagura as one of the pair for the final round—Not to say he should, either. He is more than capable of handling the battle." He glanced sideways at Chichiro. "Had you been hoping to be the second competitor for that round?"

_I had. I don't want to be anymore. I don't want _any _of us to be anymore—it's too dangerous, and I still don't know why._ But—seeing as how she had still not yet had the vision that would define the reason behind the foreboding feeling, if she would indeed have one—she did not answer with anything that she thought then besides, "I have." She knew Kurama was right about Hiei refusing to give up his position fighting in the round, but she could at least protect Kurama from its dangers. Thus, "If you don't mind, I'd like to fight with him." And even though it was a lie, she felt herself relax just the slightest bit once she'd spoken it.

"Very well," Kurama agreed rather easily. "I had expected that you would be more enthusiastic toward the idea, so I considered readying myself to argue about it, but then decided it wasn't worth it." He grinned casually. "You and Hiei are very much alike in your battle drive, I've found, and I really don't have any pressing desire to fight Kagura. Neither do you, though," he noticed suddenly. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing." The lie was too smooth and Chichiro knew it—Kurama would recognize it as a falsehood quite easily.

Luckily, he didn't seem to want to argue about that, either, and said nothing more than, "Happy to hear it."

Their conversation shifted to something more casual—a discussion of what they believed Koenma's next missions for them would be. Neither of them took their suggestions seriously, and Chichiro even hinted that he would send them to fight Godzilla some year.

Again, Kurama was surprised at how knowledgeable she was about the unimportant things about the human world, and yet she seemed to know so little about life in that realm.

As they spoke, neither seemed to want to admit or bring up that this would likely be their last case together. Koenma didn't often assign the same teams again unless they worked unusually well together, and although he wasn't sure how Chichiro felt, he figured that their lack of teamwork in the ring had hindered that consideration quite a bit.

A rumble of thunder overhead signaled the beginning of another storm. Both sets of green eyes lifted to the skies, and the two demons marveled in silence at the angry-seeming clouds beginning to show above them.

While storms in the demon world were usually fleeting and did not last more than an hour, they typically came in sets not very far apart and thus Kurama had no desire to be outside during the rain. "Chichiro, I'm going to head back," he told his comrade, standing and dusting himself off. "Are you coming?"

"Nah," the demoness replied wrinkling her nose for no apparent reason as she shook her head. "I think I'll stay—I like the rain."

"Alright."

Before Kurama could leave, Chichiro called to him, "When will the final round be?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "I do believe that we will have a day of break at the minimum."

"Positive about that this time?" Chichiro asked him with a grin, recalling the timing of the last fight.

"At least about a single day, yes," he told her, returning the amused expression. "See you at the arena whenever you arrive back."

Just as he disappeared into the trees, Chichiro felt the first drop of rain wet her skin. She allowed her eyes to slip shut softly as she lifted her face upward toward the sky.

--

Hiei curled his lip distastefully at the rain soaking the forest about him. He was safely—or at least mostly—dry beneath a large branch of some form of demon world pine tree, and normally he would not have really minded the rain much, but it prevented successful training or sparring. He doubted it would be raining when he fought Kagura, and so it would have been useless to ready himself in a different setting than the actual battle. He figured it would at least be dry by then, or dry enough in the ring that it might as well have been.

As he thought of the final round, he noticed the extreme convenience of Chichiro being as close as she was suddenly. He had not intentionally gotten near to her—she was heading his way, and as he spotted her, he realized she was spaced out enough that she probably had not even sensed him yet.

He readied to leap down the thirty or so feet to drop by her, noticing that as he did the rain was slowing. It had lasted only about twenty minutes, but chances were it would start up again soon.

Landing not far behind her near silently, he marveled at how easily she could allow her mind to wander—she still hadn't noticed him behind her. "Woman," he voiced, not feeling particularly kind enough to call her by her name.

She started at the sound of his version of 'hello', and although Hiei thought that she would have cared, she didn't seem to mind or really acknowledge what he'd called her. Not to say it was an insult, but he had learned that those of the female species typically preferred their own names to something as simple as 'woman'.

"Hey, fucker," she greeted with an honest grin, the title seeming nothing but an automatic or joking insult that meant little to her. "You back to normal yet?"

"When wasn't I?" he growled back flatly, leaning against the nearest tree to glare at her without any true force.

"Never mind," she replied, her smirk widening. She decided against bringing up the friendliness he had addressed her with before his last fight. His kind spurts were fleeting and did not happen often. "What do you want?"

"Have you made up your mind yet?" he asked her simply.

"Ah," she said, as though she had figured out some great mystery, "_that's_ why you wanted to talk to me. Yeah, I'm fighting with you."

"How surprising," the fire demon commented dryly.

Just as sarcastic but with far less coldness, Chichiro agreed, "Isn't it?"

"Hn." He turned to spring into the trees.

"Is that all?" Chichiro asked him.

"Is there supposed to be more?" Hiei replied with little enthusiasm.

The she-demon only grinned at him and asked jokingly, "Are we friends yet?"

He either didn't notice or didn't care that it was a joke referring to her past question—'_Do you consider us friends?_' Instead, he answered rather plainly, "We are comrades and we have entered into an alliance. We will see what follows." And then, waiting only seconds for her reply—which she could not muster quick enough for him—he disappeared.

She stared at the ground for a moment before she felt a grin slide along her lips, and she looked up to where he had gone.

As she smirked after him, the vision that she had been expecting suddenly slammed upon her with the force of an axe blade. While her eyes seemed to go blank and the flurry of images swept over her, a stray tear welled in her eye and slipped down her face, dripping off her chin carelessly to the ground, forgotten.

When it first began, she could not recall where she had been before it started. Thus, when she found herself standing on the edge of the ring of the arena, watching Hiei fighting against a black-haired demoness she assumed to be Kagura, she thought she was dreaming. For the first time, she allowed herself to notice the way that his muscles rippled along his back so smoothly, and how well-formed the front of his torso was. She found the fact that he was shirtless an amusing fact—after all, she still believe herself to be asleep and thought her own subconscious had desired him to be lacking a shirt while she dreamed of him. In the same manner as a dream, the vision passed quickly but seemed far longer as she experienced it than it truly was.

She smirked lightly, though for a different reason than the last. "Advertises my mindset, I suppose," she said to herself, amused. But she was distracted from watching him when she realized that she was entrapped within something clear—an ice cage? There were four solid walls around her and thick covering of the same material, and she blinked once in confusion before muttering, "What the hell…?"

And then, as she lifted a hand to brush against the frozen, moist walls, she also noticed a very familiar-looking blue-eared fox demoness near Hiei—her future self.

"No," she whispered softly to herself. "Is this…Am I having…?"

The foresight she had finally recognized as a vision continued on, and while Kagura began to speak, the current Chichiro within the ice cage tried to assess the situation. Hiei was not moving—it seemed he was chained in place by something. Her future self was no help in that department, for she appeared to be injured—again. By the looks of it, it could not have simply been a torn wound from her past battle that was making her shirt stain red; no, she had taken quite a beating in that battle.

_Great¸ _Chichiro thought to herself._ Perhaps I am to die, then._

It was not an entirely horrible idea, especially not if she could stop it simply from paying attention to the minute details of the vision. However, once she began to listen to the wind demoness's words, she began to understand that it was not her own death she was to witness.

"I admit," Kagura's silky voice offered, "imitation is not truly my style. In this case, I think I should make an exception." Drawing her fingers to lay against her cheek softly as though she were considering something, she asked with a small smirk, "Chichiro, have you ever seen Urameshi Yusuke's spirit gun?" As if reading something from the future fox demoness's expression, Kagura chuckled softly. "Oh, I see. You've never even met him. Well, then, this homage to his technique will only have significance to Hiei. The event, however, should mean much to both of you."

As the wind sorceress lifted the fan she was holding—which seemed to be her weapon—and set it out in a straight line before her, her aim at the ensnared Hiei, Chichiro's eyes widened suddenly as she understood Kagura's intent. She was not to finish off the fox demoness first. No, she intended to kill Hiei and make Chichiro watch. Then, she would follow up what she had begun with the other she-demon.

The demoness within the ice cage felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end suddenly. _This is what I am supposed to change…?_ she wondered to herself. If she had hated Hiei for so long, if she was trying so desperately to tell herself that she despised him for what he had done, then why was it that she _wanted_ to change this? Why was it she did not want to see the fire demon die as she had hoped she would for so long before now? And why was it, all of a sudden, that the thought of his death brought tears to her eyes?

"You must save the one you love," a quiet, gentle voice said from nearby. It took Chichiro only a single glance about her to discover a bluish-green-haired ice apparition standing to her side, just outside the ice cage. "It is so sad that you do not love my brother, Hiei, or you could save him as well."

She stared in silence at the little ice maiden nearby, frozen for a moment not unlike the cage about her. "…What?" she whispered softly, finally.

"You must save the one you love," Yukina repeated for her with a gentle smile that did not reach her freezing, oddly familiar crimson gaze. "But you say that you do not love Hiei. So my dearest brother will never return to me after all these years."

Finding that her body was locked up simply from the cold bluntness the ice apparition was addressing her with, Chichiro couldn't respond immediately. Then, with sudden clarity and terror she was too late, she turned and slammed her fists against the solid edges of the ice cage and shouted, "No! Let me out of here! I love him! Let me save the one I love, please!" just as Kagura's blow connected with Hiei's body.

Her consciousness slammed back into the present as her physical body gave a strangled cry. Her legs were trembling horribly, and as the vision sunk in, her entire form began to shake as well. She let a low whimper spill her lips as she brought her hands to the sides of her head, just about at her temples, and she did not notice her claws digging into her flesh as they had the previous day as well. Her mouth was still wide from the shock, her body seeming unwilling and unable to lift from where it sat rather clumsily on the ground. A minute passed, then another, and finally she was able to close her mouth into a tight clench as she considered that in all of her experience, in all of the years that she had seen the future, her visions had never, ever been wrong.


	16. The Final Battle & Chichiro’s Sacrifice

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

**Disclaimer:** Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn't either, though she's from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 16—The Final Battle, and Chichiro's Sacrifice

--

She was stumbling. It was the first thing Hiei noticed when he spied Chichiro walking back toward the arena, although by the far-off look that still lingered in her eyes, he figured she didn't even know where she was headed. Only now, the far-off look had a sort of desperation to it, and if he had to guess, he figured the streaks on her face were from tears and not the rain. He raised his eyebrows lightly, debating on leaping down from his current perch in the trees or remaining there and watching where she went. He decided on the former.

His feet made the slightest of splashes as he landed in a small puddle made by the rain a short time ago, so he didn't bother trying to silence his footsteps as he approached Chichiro. Even if he was in front of her, her eyes had been downcast and he thought that if he had not made sound, she would not have noticed him until she walked right into him.

She had an odd look in her eyes when she glanced up. There was first a wild relief, and then suddenly the unexpected ecstasy in her gaze seemed to implode and become dread. "You—" Her arms—raised against her chest and shoulders, as if holding herself—twitched and pressed closer to her for a moment before they dropped to her sides. "You were…"

His hand caught his katana hilt when she moved forward; she had unnerved him and for a moment, he thought she would attack him, for spar or otherwise. Instead, she threw her arms around him, pinning his arm across his torso because he was still holding the hilt of his sword. Really, it wasn't a very comfortable position to be in.

Before he could ask what she thought she was doing, she pulled back suddenly and fell to her knees, resting back on her feet. Her hand had snagged his wrist as she collapsed, and now as her hair fell in front of her face and barred her expression from sight, she whispered feverishly, "You can't fight. You can't fight Kagura in the final round."

He didn't snatch his hand back as she probably would have thought he would if she had been thinking clearly. He didn't even move save to mutter, "And why the hell not?"

Chichiro didn't answer. She only dropped her hand from where it had clenched his wrist, setting it on the ground beside her other.

Hiei was silent alongside her for the first two minutes she did not answer him. Then, he reached out and grasped her elbow, yanking her up although she seemed unwilling to stand. "Why can't I fight?" he demanded again. "Why are you acting so strangely?"

But her eyes were more sober, now—she was beginning to think clearly. She still refused to meet his eyes. "I—I need to talk to Kurama," she mumbled to herself, and now as she reached up her hand to push her hair back over her shoulder, he realized her face was flushed. Was it from whatever had her so worked up, or was she embarrassed because he was still steadying her up by her elbow? When her gaze fleetingly went to his hand and then glanced away just as quickly, he figured on the second.

"Leave that for later," Hiei told her, though with less venom than usual. "Tell me what's the matter with you—_now._"

Chichiro's wide eyes flickered to his face before she seemed to suddenly compose herself. She yanked her arm away as she stood back and looked away, letting out a low, somewhat shaky sigh. "I don't have to tell you anything," she muttered coldly, whatever sentimentalism she'd possessed before suddenly gone. She turned and continued walking toward the arena.

"Yes, you do," Hiei growled as he followed her, his kindness likewise at its end.

She was unusually quick to concede. "You know how I told you that I—" The demoness considered her wording again, though she didn't slow her pace at all. "—That something big was going to happen?" she tried again. At Hiei's nod, she opened her mouth to try again but discovered she could not find the words to tell him. "In the final round, I saw…You…"

"You think something's going to happen to me?" he suggested.

Chichiro opened her mouth to speak, but her eyes chanced sideways and caught the way he was looking at her. He thought—no, he _knew_ that she was concerned for him. Was she that easy to read or had he intruded into her mind like he had previously? She stopped and, curling her lip in an ill-tempered manner, she snarled coldly, "Don't act as though you think I care."

His eyes seemed to search her, gage her expression, and then he smirked. "Right. Because obviously _you're _just _pretending_ to care. I compliment your acting when you first arrived, by the way."

Her eyes narrowed, and in a flash, images of her past—his slaughter of her family—wheeled through her thoughts and made her ache with the weight of her rage and regret for being the only to survive. As was typical, her anger outweighed her guilt, and she'd nearly forgotten the remorse and blame she'd thrown in her own direction as an odd way of coping. The self-loathing that had been drowned out by her drive to avenge her family before her own death. Such hatred had been forgotten for so many long years when she'd forgotten his appearance and name—a thing that would be hard to understand unless it was looked into—and yet now that she saw him face to face… "I should hate you." Her cat-slit eyes burned with that hatred now as she lifted them to glower at the demon before her, her confession of love forgotten. "I should _loathe _you for what you did to me so many years ago."

His smirk never faltered. "Well?" he queried arrogantly. "Don't say you should._ Do _you?"

For a moment, Hiei figured by her widened eyes and blank expression that she was stunned into silence simply by that inquiry, and her stuttered word of, "O-of…" didn't hinder that assumption. And then, spontaneously, her countenance returned to one of feral and simplistic rage. "Of course I do, you bastard!"

"You don't hate me," he accused boldly, mockingly. "You didn't the first time you saw me, and you don't now."

"Don't you dare try and correct me!" she snarled back, her claws unsheathed. "I hate you!" she shouted, not entirely unlike a child. Her torso leaned forward the slightest bit, her arms thrust backward as she cried again, "I _hate_ you!"

Hiei narrowed his eyes at her, growling without any scrap of gentleness, "Shut the hell up," and thrust her against the trunk of the closest tree, crushing their lips together roughly.

Almost out of reflex, Chichiro weaved her arms between their bodies and pushed him backward, staring at him in disbelief for a moment before she went forward and shoved him against the tree in turn, pressing her lips against his just as violently.

When Chichiro pulled away after their second kiss, she began to lean forward for another, their lips barely brushing, before she stopped—turning her head away—and pivoted suddenly, leaving the scene and moving without a word for the arena.

Hiei watched her go, and although there was none of his usual irritation within his gaze, there was no tenderness either. The emotion that had struck him only moments ago had passed.

Neither of them had any idea what had possessed them, and really, neither of them cared.

--

Chichiro barely noticed herself nibbling on her bottom lip—it was a nervous habit. What made her stop was Kurama's voice from the doorway speaking her name, and when she looked up, she found him and Hiei standing in the hall.

"Hey, guys," she murmured, though she only half succeeded in keeping her voice casual. After her short-lived escapade in the woods, she had holed herself up in her bare, cement room to wait for the final battle, considering. "What's up?"

"Koenma has informed us that the last round will begin soon," Kurama told her lightly, unaware of the reasoning behind the she-demon's flinch at his words. "Are you—?"

"I'm fine," she answered quickly, stonily. "Did he say when?"

Kurama decided to ignore how she was acting; he had discovered that she would not answer truthfully even if he persisted, which really wasn't in his nature anyhow. "No, he left that out," the fox answered. "I would suggest preparing, however, if you need to do anything beforehand. I assume it will commence within the hour."

As he turned and left, Chichiro echoed softly, "Within the hour…"

Hiei narrowed his eyes at her briefly before he went to follow Kurama without speaking a word to the demoness within the room.

Chichiro knew, now that she was thinking more clearly and was not distracted by the initial shock of her premonition, that Hiei would not be talked out of fighting the battle, no matter what she told him. She still had not informed him of what she had seen—it always felt wrong to her to speak of her visions to others, no matter what they involved, least of all in detail.

She dropped her face into her hands as she leaned over, resting her elbows on her crossed legs. Inhaling deeply, she held her breath for a long moment, considering the situation. She had to think of some way to stop what she had seen, sure, but how easily could she do that in the heat of battle?

The fox demoness allowed a massive sigh to spill her lips, and she laid backward onto the mattress as she unfolded her hands and draped her arms atop her forehead. Suddenly, she wondered if she was considering the correct question. Perhaps, she should not have been thinking about _how_ to change what she had seen, but rather _if_ she could change what she had seen. _Is there any way to change the future…?_

Not shockingly, it brought her no comfort as she waited with dread for the battle against the wind demoness, Kagura.

--

It was surprising to Hiei how many spectators still remained now that the final round had arrived. For one thing, many of the audience had been killed while watching the earlier fights by stray attacks, simply for bad aim on the part of the combatants. In addition to that, he had assumed that many of them had been the combatants themselves, watching their competition, and had figured that now that only his team and Kagura remained, there would be a far smaller audience. Yet, it seemed the stands were stuffed to capacity with more demons than before, all shouting enthusiastically for a brilliant slaughter by the wind demoness that Hiei and Chichiro were to face that day. For once, he wondered whether the sadistic, blood-thirsty crowd was finally going to receive what they had been waiting for.

He heard Kurama walk up behind him, and he glanced to the side but did not turn to face the fox demon.

"Did something happen between you and Chichiro?" was the first thing out of Kurama's mouth, and although he spoke it with some accusation, he seemed to mean something _bad_.

"Is that envy I hear, fox?" he replied flatly, though with more humor than ridicule for once. "Nothing happened. It's her own fault she's acting so strangely, and don't ask me. I don't know why."

The fox beside him relaxed notably, as if he had thought Hiei had attacked Chichiro or something of the like. He seemed to think Hiei's word was automatically truth, as though the fire demon had never lied. "It's unnerving," Kurama admitted. "I'm not used to seeing her like this, and I don't think I've ever seen her nervous for a battle before."

"Hn."

The redhead took the hint well enough and shushed.

The demoness on their minds walked up behind them not long after, and though she wore a mask of complete calm, both of them could see through easily to her inner turmoil, whatever the hell it was about.

"You ready, Hiei?" she asked, and cursed herself when she nearly choked on his name.

"Hn."

She feigned a smirk. "Good."

And then the announcement began. "_The winners of the semifinals were Hiei and Kurama. Of their team, Hiei and Chichiro will face the tournament's organizer, Kagura, today in the final round of battle._"

At the loudspeaker's request that they step forward, the pair of demons listed to face the wind demoness headed for the ring. Chichiro, trailing slightly farther behind and appearing far less bold than Hiei, shifted a nervous glance in her teammate's direction as her own question echoed hauntingly through her mind: '_Is there any way to change the future…?_'

From one of the other hallways of the arena forming openings into the ring, an elegantly-dressed demoness stepped, walking leisurely over toward the ring. She had short, black hair tied back into a ponytail and fiery eyes with red irises not entirely unlike Hiei's—it was a lighter red than his, and hers were lacking pupils. "So, you _did_ survive," Kagura purred as she stepped onto the ring, her flowery kimono seeming out-of-place in a fighting ring.

"Can we cut the chit-chat and begin already?" Hiei replied impatiently, for he recalled rather well the way that their adversary had rambled on when they had 'met' her the first time through Koenma's enormous TV screen.

"Of course." Kagura smiled coldly.

Chichiro squeezed her eyes shut, feeling as though time stopped for the briefest of seconds as she stood there waiting. Then, the call she had dreaded: "BEGIN!"

The wind demoness across the ring wasted no time in responding to the commencing word from the formless voice in the loudspeaker, and she withdrew a lady fan from her large, flowing sleeves. Raising it as she unfolded it with a flip, she cried, "Dance of blades!" and flicked her wrist.

From the folds of the fan shot crescent moon-shaped blades of light, crashing into the stone floor of the arena with the force of several, small bombs. Chichiro's eyes traced the movements of the one that came closest to her while she dodged, and for a moment she could have sworn that the blast swerved midair and nearly hit her. _That's not what she used in the vision_, she noted with mild hope, before the idea was shot down when she recalled that the blast that had killed Hiei in her premonition had been a mimic of Yusuke Urameshi's spirit gun.

Chichiro hadn't expected the next round of attacks to be so quick—for whatever reason, she had assumed that Kagura would be like the other competitors of the tournament and start slow. When the fox demoness sprang back, she winced as one of the crescent moons of the 'dance of blades' sliced into her stomach, though shallowly and toward the side. As the blood began to soak into her shirt, she found that she focused not on the pain of it, but on where else she had seen herself wounded during the foresight.

Hiei glanced sideways at his companion as he leapt away from the attacks, frustrated at her reaction time. She may have never been at his level, but she had at least been able to dodge well this early into fights. Her head was on something else, and it needed to be here.

Figuring he would get little help from her during the battle (And having second thoughts about not minding having her as a partner this round rather than Kurama), he began to unravel the bandage on his arm. He wouldn't risk the Black Dragon technique yet—that was to be reserved for a desperate last attempt if he needed it. For now, he decided the mortal's flame would suffice well enough.

"Ah, so I finally get to see the famous attack, do I?" Kagura murmured, and although it seemed to have been spoken to herself, Hiei knew she had said it for his and Chichiro's benefit. She swung her lady fan once more, seemingly without intent as Hiei dodged it without any true effort.

Suddenly, though Hiei could not fathom her intent, Kagura folded said fan and tucked it back into her sleeve. "I welcome the challenge," she told him with an arrogant smirk, seeming to believe he intended on using the Dragon so soon.

"You talk too much," Hiei spat at her with distaste equal to that of what she had addressed him and Chichiro with when she arrived.

"Do I?" the wind demoness asked innocently, just as he shot forward toward her.

She withdrew a feather from where it had been stuck into her hair, and with a swish of her arm it was suddenly far larger. As she flew into the air sitting comfortably atop it, she withdrew her fan once again and called, "Dance of the dragon!"

Hiei narrowly leapt out of the way of the funnel cloud that suddenly dropped from the sky onto where he had been, digging a small crater into the stone ring—as if it wasn't beat up enough already. He shot a glance at Chichiro, who he spotted limping out of the way of another funnel cloud. When had her upper leg been injured like that…? He guessed the last time Kagura had flicked her wrist the first time she had unfolded her weapon—it had not been directed for him but rather Chichiro. _Damn it, she was having a hard enough time dodging as it was!_ he thought irritably.

"Pay attention, Jaganshi!" he heard Kagura snarl at him, and he crouched and shoved off the ring in a large jump to evade more of the bright blades seemingly made of light. He had decided already that they were wind instead and only appeared to be like an energy attack.

The funnel clouds receded into the sky after destroying a good amount of the arena; apparently, there had been at least five of them, however only two of them had truly gone toward Hiei or Chichiro.

Chichiro leaned most of her weight onto her good leg, pressing a hand to her wounded thigh as she breathed heavily. Hiei had been having an easy time of dodging, sure, but his mind was not preoccupied by anything else, it seemed. The fox demoness was not so fortunate. Try as she might, her focus was continuously snatched away by thoughts of the vision._ He might die; He'll die if I don't do something; I have no idea what I can do to save him…_

Her loss of concentration was showing with the long slashes on her body from Kagura's attacks that she was unable to avoid. Presently, she felt one of the half moon-shaped blades of light tear into the side of her chest, and she was half certain she had heard a rib crack. Feeling herself slam roughly into the ground, she tried her best to recover, but even the pain refused to sober her mind and clear her distracting thoughts.

"Chichiro, pay attention!" she heard Hiei snarl, and she realized he was standing not three feet from her, between her and Kagura. A wild mix of emotions swept through her when she recognized the fact that he was protecting her while she recovered. "If you don't get your head out of the clouds, you're going to kill us both!"

Those words hit home, and Chichiro felt her heart jolt more than it would have if he had said something like that in different circumstances.

Hiei realized immediately after he said it that she had responded differently emotionally than she normally would have, and for the first time he realized the extent of how strangely she was acting. He had thought that whatever paranoia she'd possessed earlier had gone for the most part, but apparently not. What the hell was wrong with her?

As she staggered to her feet with a wince, palm over her new injury, she nodded to Hiei as if to tell him she'd be fine. He watched her for a short moment before he turned away and ran for Kagura again, resuming his previous attempt at unraveling the bandage wrapped about his arm. As it fell behind him, coiling on the ground, he felt the warmth of his attack begin to blaze about his hand.

Kagura grinned from her high perch on the massive feather. "Fool!" she called down. "Do you really think you can reach me up—?"

But her mouth was slammed shut by the force of his fist on her upper jaw, and as her concentration failed, the feather shrunk and the pair of demons were sent sailing down toward the hard, unforgiving ground.

Hiei tapped down smoothly enough, but Kagura hardly had time to flip so that her feet were facing the ring rather than her skull—her landing was not so clean. She did, however, manage to leap away to avoid another one of Hiei's punches. A second from that attack, the wind demoness thought, would probably knock her wits from her long enough for him to end the battle.

_He wasn't supposed to be this good_, she mentally snarled, for she had organized this tournament more for show than anything. Her confidence in her own abilities compared to Hiei's was now beginning to seem misplaced even to her. Chichiro, though, was left out of this consideration—she was acting air-headed enough that Kagura believed she was always like this in the ring and that the wind demoness had merely overlooked it. She was unaware of what plagued Chichiro's mind, and what the fox demoness's true capabilities were when she was not hindered by troubling thoughts.

Kagura had not planned on resorting to her last measures—they had been mere precaution. Though, as she readied to use them and tucked away her fan, she was rather glad she had gone through the trouble of setting them.

She made a large swishing stroke with her arm, and suddenly several sets of shackles shot forth from the stone ring. Chained deep in the ground so that they could withstand their quarry yanking at them, they were made of and controlled with her energy, They did not move for Chichiro—the she-demon was as good as out of the match, and could be dealt with easily. No, their target was Hiei, and they sailed for him with great speed and he was able to avoid them only a short time before one snagged his right foot. After the first clasped about his ankle, another caught his left foot, and a third's chain wrapped about his right leg higher up toward his knee, and it continued until he was dragged down toward the ground. The shackles sank back into the ground and held fast even as he started to try to break them with his mortal flame, and suddenly he found that he could no longer expel his demonic energy in such large portions. "What the hell?" he growled, gritting his teeth.

"Even the fastest cannot win!" Kagura cried triumphantly, laughing as her confidence was regained. "Not when they face me!"

"It's certainly less likely when we're forced to face filthy cheaters," Hiei snarled at her.

"Go ahead and try to bite me with words," the wind demoness purred. "Anything goes in these battles, and even if not, this is a _demon_ tournament not a human duel for honor. Silly little boy."

He narrowed his eyes at her, raising his arm to summon the Dragon of the Darkness Flame from the depths of spirit world when he realized that not only his mortal flame had been taken from him—he was now unable to make any form of attack that was not a physical one. That, too, he could not do, barred as he was. And now there were shackles about his wrists, restraining him from getting at his sword. He found a small smirk creep onto his face. _She's beaten me._

"Chichiro!" Kagura called suddenly, heading for the fox demoness where she stood on shaky legs. "Are you still conscious, then?"

The she-demon Kagura had addressed started to stand, lunging for Kagura and snarling, "Release him you—!"

Chichiro's words were cut off as Kagura rammed her elbow into the fox demoness's ribs, grinning sadistically as she crumbled to her knees. "You can barely stand!" the wind demoness noticed mockingly. "Do you truly expect to fight me?"

But then she turned to Hiei, and a devious glint entered her eyes and her grin widened. "I admit," she began, "allusions—or whatever you would choose to call them—are not truly my style. In this case, I think I should make an exception." The smirk on her face became smaller as she seemed to consider something rather seriously. Her fingers touched her cheek in such a familiar way that Chichiro found she could not look at her adversary anymore.

_Hiei, I can't…_ The fox demoness cut off her thought train before it could finish itself—She _had_ to think of a way to stop this, no matter how badly she'd done this far into the battle. There _had_ to be a way to change what she had seen before…right?

"Chichiro, have you ever seen Urameshi Yusuke's spirit gun?" Kagura watched Chichiro gasping on the ground, seeming to relish watching the fox demoness try to regain her breath. "Oh, I see," she continued finally as though she had gathered some sort of information from her hunched over opponent. "You've never even met him. Well, then, this homage to his technique will only have significance to Hiei. The event, however, should mean much to both of you."

Kagura swung her foot toward Chichiro's form suddenly, and as it caught the she-demon on the slash across her ribs, the fox demoness yelped and coughed several times as a small dribble of blood spilled her lips. For a moment, as she lay there trying to shove the pain from her mind and clear it from the blood loss, she forgot that she had not seen the kick in her vision. She also forgot what the vision meant, ever so briefly.

Chichiro winced lightly as her eyes clouded over during that time; she must have lost a lot of blood by now, she figured, and for her not to have passed out had taken extreme will-power. Any human would have been out cold long before then, and she was suddenly severely glad for her breed.

Eyes lifting as she tried to clear her vision, she wondered briefly exactly what 'event' Kagura had meant, when everything spontaneously rushed back to her and she understood with sudden, perfect clarity what she had to do.

Kagura was raising her fan even as the thought passed through Chichiro's mind, and just as she saw Hiei glance away and seem to accept what was to come with surprising calmness, she scrambled to her feet and ran for him.

Hiei was willing to meet death head-on, and it was not fear of the pain that he expected or fear of death that made him close his eyes. It was more of a prolonged wince from the realization that if he was killed, Chichiro would be left alone to battle Kagura and he wasn't sure if she was strong enough to defeat the wind demoness. She would probably be killed too, and the thought itself made him flinch for reasons he couldn't begin to understand or want to acknowledge.

Yet, he was unaware that Chichiro had summoned her light and wind sword with the last of her strength, and that just as Kagura's fan released an attack so similar to Yusuke's spirit gun, she had slashed the weapon across the chains on his legs and freed him. He was also unaware that in the short amount of time before the attack could connect with his body as his comrade had seen it do in her vision, Chichiro had pivoted and threw herself in front of him.

Hiei had heard the slash of her weapon—his eyes had begun to open in reaction to it when Kagura's attack slammed into Chichiro. His eyes were wide as he recognized the stain of blood on her back. Her back had not been injured before, not _seconds_ before. As he shot to his feet and caught her as she collapsed, he sank back on his knees with her in his arms. The wound on her chest satisfied his suspicion that the attack—the one meant for him that she had deflected with her own body—had nearly shot directly through her front-to-back. It just barely hadn't. "Stupid…!" he murmured hoarsely.

He caught sight of the wind demoness across the ring from the corner of his eyes, and suddenly his rage outweighed his guilt, if only briefly. "_Wench_!" he roared, leaping to his feet, hardly having made sure to set Chichiro back gently. Even as he dove for his opponent some twenty feet from him, he already felt his limbs becoming heavy as though he had been weakened by the sight of Chichiro in front of him and stained with blood that should have been his. His mind retained its fury—the horrible rage at Kagura for what she had done—but not much of anything else, and before he had even whipped his katana from its sheath, he was barely aware that his body was even moving still.

Kagura had found herself grin when she had seen that her attack had hit Chichiro instead—what a perfect way to ensure that this battle would end. And Hiei, running for her in his rage, had set himself up for the perfect ending attack.

"I am the wind, boy," she told him distastefully, mockingly. "You'd best remember that before you try to attack me head-on like that."

He barely even heard her. The only thing that seemed to reach his ears was her stunned gasp when his sword pierced into her chest, and the tiniest of noises when it was just as quickly withdrawn and in one fluid stroke removed her head.

Without even confirming the kill, although it was hardly necessary anyhow, he sprang away and in a flash was beside Chichiro. His eyes were blank, perhaps from the extremity of the mix of emotions within him, perhaps from the extent of his confusion; still, they were wide and as he crouched beside her, a flicker of pain entered them although he had no physical injury. He tried to make sense of the situation, of how it had happened and why he had not been able to kill Kagura beforehand. Consideration of his worth even came into his mind. Yet, all he could muster was, "Why…?"

Chichiro gave a hoarse laugh, one that without her grimly amused expression Hiei would have had a hard time identifying. "You jerk," she rasped, though there was no power behind the insult and it was spoken nearly as a term of endearment. "I tried so hard to hate you, but…" Simply as a spontaneous decision, she murmured in a changed tongue, "_Koishiteru_."

Though her vision was blurred, she saw something flicker within his eyes. Even for the briefest moments, a stunned expression had entered them. Stunned and with remorse, and for just an instant, she could see that his consciousness had drifted from the present and back to another time as a memory snatched away his attention. So brief it was, however, that when it was gone she wondered if she had imagined it.

A pang of pain made her recall their position, which had drifted from her mind only for the shortest second. "_Nanone kuchi zuke_," she whispered ever so softly, "_kuchibiru ni dake._"

And he did, even as he felt her life energy fade from her and even as her bloodied chest stopped lifting with breath. Their courtship began with her death.

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_**Translations:**_

"_Koishiteru_"—"I'm in love with you."

"_Nanone kuchi zuke—kuchibiru ni dake_"—"We're only beginning, but kiss to only my lips"


	17. Important: End Note & Update

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**Update:** The second book has started. Go check it out!

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**Author Alert People:** The first chapter has the same explanation, but seeing as how you wouldn't have gotten an alert for that chapter, I'll put it here, too: This is a complete rewrite of the old version of Voices of the Lost Realm, as it was in bitter need of being redone. Thus, here we go. The plot may be fairly much the same, but I assure you, it's an entirely different fanfiction and I hope some of you will be interested to read the storyline again or for the first time, depending on what you "alerted" my account for.

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**New Readers:** Yes, there will be sequels. I'm just not sure yet if there will be different parts to this "book" or if there will be separate books like the original version. The other "books" that are still currently posted are, as they say in their descriptions, just shells, which means there aren't any actual chapters in them and it's just so that I can keep the same location for the stories (and the reviews as well.). As they are written, chapters will be posted in those shells.

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